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There’s a place near here called Chicken Bristle. It’s not a very hopeful name, but it’s out in the country and quiet. A handful of houses are clustered along a lane. The land is rolling and secret and dark. My grandmother lived there when she was a girl, but then it was known as Turnersville— if you were white. If you were black, you lived in Chicken Bristle, Kentucky. I’ve seen a map that says the place is Turnersville, but then a pair of parentheses has Chicken Bristle between the crescent moon-like curves. The curves are like unspoken verses, and Chicken Bristle is more than a name. I don’t think anyone, black or white, prospered there. It was just a place to live and long and love your people. It wasn’t a place for prospering, and, anyway, enriching yourself with simple riches isn’t really prosperity. It’s better to know the land around you is rolling and dark, pastoral and lulling, and hard. You set your mind and body to work and hope the work will reach your heart, to see, in that repose, some beauty, some meaning for a human life. And there you have it, America, your history
Appalachian Review – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Mar 16, 2018
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