truth be told: Kinship
An Exchange: Part 5
Article voiceover
Kinship: An Exchange
Welcome to Part 5 of An Exchange, where artists explore a topic through an exchange of their art.
This month’s exchange is on the topic of Kinship, a series of six pieces written over the past four months, poems from Brian Funke, author of Poetry & Process, and poems and art from Katharine Beckett Winship, author of Matters of Kinship. A newsletter will be published daily for six days, exploring different aspects of Kinship, each publication responding to and building on the prior piece from the collaborating artist.
Subscribe to Matters of Kinship
Kinship: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
TRUTH BE TOLD
One question.
One answer.
Two questions.
Two answers.
One more thing,
show me
your road agreement.
hours.
my many hours
tracing lines on a map
for this mountain road.
A county line separates McDowell from Buncombe
about a mile up. Another issue for the bank.
Western North Carolina culture, I say.
You share the water?
Show me the agreement?
More hours.
A refinance of my hours.
I want to say
I share water with the Bears,
the Fox, and the Bluebirds.
Truth be told,
said the banker,
you could have written
the agreements
on scraps of paper.
Aren’t these scraps—
this three inch pile of forest,
with a closing cost of $6378.48:
for the appraisal company,
the appraisal management company,
the title search,
the title search insurance,
aren’t these
just scraps of paper?
Truth be told,
this interrogation
leaks sadness into the soil.
Mother Earth does not deserve
these tears.
I pack the old house —
the one I shared with a long love.
I will build a tiny house
on a lane that looks over
Grandfather Mountain.
But first, I must prove myself
worthy of the wood and the paint,
the roof and the fence.
I must ask the Field Mice,
the Squirrels who own the acorns of this land
and the Carolina Wrens—
will you loan me these 512 square feet of earth
to seed my words again?
Truth be told,
the Mama Bear concerns me.
Not in September.
She’s over there sniffing
where the old fence stood.
She listens when I ask her to move on.
And behind her, far behind,
two cubs saunter.
They’ve been with her awhile.
When she returns,
we may bless the space between us.
With caution.
And extra caution in May
when she brings new cubs.
Respect.
Respect for her lineage
and her well worn path.
in kinship,
Katharine🌱
I feel your love for place, Katharine—fierce and defiant—abraded by the harsh rasp of the lawyers. They never stop talking to listen to the Truth.
Beautiful poem, Katharine. I like the two themes of Truth and Respect. I especially like the final lines of: "Respect for her lineage
and her well worn path."