Readyease by M. Daniel McCrotty


I stand with the immensity of earth
stacked before me, motionless 
with the loam, frostfrail from springs, 
I yield you my earth, good ground, 
reworked, from one song to the next, sleeping 
here in the cool evening shade, bared within
great folds of land under readyskies. 
I give you the empty of family, 
my generations, people who 
will know my stance a hundred years
beyond death. My offered tendons 
restitch the bones of my being
to the mud of layered leaves,
rewoven through pine and needle;
plant my stone deep in this ground
among shoaled ridges and clay currents,
upright with the hope of forefathers
and simple with the readyease of children. 






M. Daniel McCrotty lives in Knoxville Tennessee. He received his MA from East Tennessee State University and enjoys collecting Appalachian poetry, fly fishing local rivers, and spending time with his wife. His work has previously appeared or is upcoming in Jelly Bucket, Appalachian Heritage, and Foothill Poetry Journal among others. 




return to sampler            return to poetry             home