gravelbeneathmyfeet-blog
Mountain Sounds
Gravel beneath my feet & other mountain sounds: a photographic journey through Estill County, Kentucky.
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Hargett School, Hargett, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/LrBvP48Fz7U2
My mother points to the block
of what’s left of the gymnasium tiles
just beneath a ragged basketball net
“That’s where I fell and hurt my back in gym class,”
how surreal it seemed to be
in the place that began what ails her even today
Further down the hallway
we find the fifth grade classroom of Mr. Samples
Samples is still a character
if he catches you out at the grocery store
he’ll keep you caught up talking for hours
I laugh remembering a story about this particular room
“Is that the closet where you beat up those mean girls?”
My mother’s eyes shine as she grins in confirmation
touched that I remembered a story that she told me
over a decade ago
The only classroom still in tact
after decades of the earth reclaiming the school
Was the classroom of Mrs. Burgess
where my mother spend first grade
The slate chalkboard still clung tightly on the wall
This place is more than dangling light fixtures
and weather beaten bricks
Hargett serves as a guardian to the memories of my mother
and that of so many others from years past
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Rose for the late Organist, Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/fMhwvCG6pL22
Miss Armeda
She was the kindest soul
one could ever hope to meet
She was what there was to love
about Sundays
Her grin made the church feel like a home
and she always made one feel wanted
Her warm hugs
were always a welcome reminder
that she had missed you last week
Even when life was it’s hardest
Miss Armeda was an unwavering source of love
As a Christian
your goal should be
for others to recognize the love of God
shining from within your soul
for all to see
And I always saw the light of God
in Miss Armeda
and my heart saddens at the thought that
the world is a little less bright
without her in it
But then my heart soars because
I know that her light is at its brightest now
as she sings within Heaven’s gates with her Lord
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Chevy Pickup, Barnes Mountain, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/PpqiAgRqQim
Old Chevy trucks have this way of telling time
years passed and stories told
lives lived and lovers grown old
No sound is quite as sweet
as gravel beneath feet
and under the turning tires
of a four-wheel drive
on the end of summertime
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River View Place, Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/aYjyfAgLT2x
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Plantation house, Pryse Road, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/zKw6URiyyVr
America and its finest have this way of forgetting
the antebellum history that gave us this edge
We are no more than colonists and conquerors
but we can strive to right the wrongs
Looking at this house
travelers see an antique stillness and beauty
but
locals tell tales of its dark and haunted past
This stunning giant looms
over what was once a plantation
and somewhere within the grounds
rests a slave quarters
but no one likes to mention that
It’s almost as if it’s easier
to just pretend like it never happened
and that this house is only a thing of beauty
not a ghost of a shameful past
and to simply
forget
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Barnes Mountain, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/q3qJaQWCkTQ2
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Roadside Views, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/QkJ2QGZqQ3o
Winding roads and autumn leaves
embracing around the curves
Kentucky’s most beautiful love affair
since God saw fit
for the bluegrass to kiss the mountains
Breath catches upon the sound
of the whippoorwill
and that of the lone woodpecker
Nothing compares to coasting
along a back road
Tom Petty blaring
through old speakers
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Ravenna Elementary School, Ravenna, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/rcPqGVUJLqE2
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Railroad Bridge, Racetrack Road, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/pdKqAc7gpeJ2
Art manifests itself in the unlikeliest of places
from an old building to
undoubtedly
every last railroad bridge in the country
Teenagers have scrawled their names
across the old stone for decades
amateurs at even holding a can of paint
in their youthful hands
The graffiti of it all talks
it says who has been there and
even who could be and
what sort of train they were running from
albeit literal or otherwise
Everyone’s on the run from something
no one is entirely content
Not everyone decides to document their journeys
so these small faded bursts of color
are all that remains
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Contents of the Abandoned Library, Hargett, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/LrBvP48Fz7U2
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Flood Lines of 1984 and 2003, Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/sszHpJxpLUv
Growing up
I always believed that the fields
on the way to town
were magical
a sort of magic that was all my own
like a secret of sorts
Something out of a storybook
when rain would fall
the fields would turn
from grass to water
then back again a couple of days later
Faith possessed by a child is like no other
belief in the unseen
and in the inconceivable
I remember learning later on that
since the country was split in half
by the Kentucky River
the rising River became floodwaters
and those fields weren’t magical after all
Growing up
means learning that what you’ve always known
and believed
isn’t necessarily what you’ve always seen
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The Legacy of Old Money Irvine, Pryse Road, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/zKw6URiyyVr
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Over the Irvine-Ravenna Line, Ravenna, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/x1K5D6hdNK62
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Tipton Way, Millers Creek, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/uLseUp8jt7s
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Sinking Piano, Hargett, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/LrBvP48Fz7U2
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Bridge Over the Kentucky River, Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky
https://goo.gl/maps/6BMz8iawo3A2
Irvine is a living, breathing human being
and the Kentucky river is its blood
winding in veins and ventricles
cutting trails through the mountains
That green bridge is an insignia of years passed
the town may evolve
but that bridge will be a constant
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