I get this feeling whenever I return 
to this ancient home of mine, after
going away – be it days or weeks 
it feels a lot like completion to me
like I am never whole as long as I
am away from the place if my birth
and blood; though I take it with me 
every place that I go – it is part of me

these hills and hollers gave me life 
my parents grew up in Appalachia 
right here in eastern Kentucky where
our families have been for generations
they were born here, as was I, on the
banks of the Ohio river in a small town

grew up here all my life, all thirty-eight
years of it, and I will be blessed if I die
in these foothills and sink beneath the 
red clay that my great-papaw mined for
fire bricks when he was young and fit 
it will be the greatest honor to forever
stay in Appalachia; be part of it always 

there ain’t a place in this world my soul
desires to be more than this; give me to
the sandstone and mine, rivers, trees 
give me to the land of my ancestors 
let me always keep my Appalachian heart