Roanoke, Virginia

by Sharon Christner

Bluegrass, dancing,

and I remember a life on the mountains 

and between them, by the fire. 

Fireblue dancing grass, Mountains, gone up breathing and back down singing.

Someone takes their baby in a pack to see the sky. Everyone helps

everyone move, not far, just togetherer. Yes, grassblue firedancing. Good things:

gold blue green grass, requited pies, the Spirit’s dancing fire, good that runs through woods to you, 

Grassfire dancing blue. The sad magic is: you can’t show someone the way in 

who doesn’t want to go. They won’t see the hillstars and silver licks

if they want to be bigger than the whole valley. They might see

the unrequited highwayside. The leafs and birds will try their tries, 

and the sun will pour its sunset sauce over everything twice over. Oh, 

who knows, maybe there is a way. 

Now that I have danced the grass, the fire, the sun-sauced blue,

these grayscaped places are too hard. Oh give me

a warm wilderness. Lord

tell me you 

are coming back to get me.

Sharon Christner is from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She earned her MFA from Hollins University in 2021. Her work is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, and published in The Philadelphia Citizen and Philadelphia Stories. She is currently writing a nonfiction book about survival around Vatican City. She misses Virginia very much.