In the Country of the Old
Even a language won’t stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time.
~ Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Almost as soon as I have accepted
my place among the Old Guard,
I have moved beyond it
to merely old, obsolete,
a career full of experience now
as empty as Confederate bills,
and the landscape flashes by
like drivers who glare and honk,
and the map has grown complex,
crisscrossed with routes and ways
as strange as the puzzled face
I meet above the bathroom sink,
as weird as the weathered boots
that no longer want to walk.
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Jane Sasser was born and raised in Fairview, North Carolina, and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Her poetry has appeared in The Sun, The Atlanta Review, The North American Review, Appalachian Heritage, and other anthologies and publications. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Recollecting the Snow (March Street Press, 2008) and Itinerant (Finishing Line, 2009). She is a 2016 Humanities Tennessee Outstanding Educator.
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