To the bone

Suzannah Cockerille

It was in ’76 when he drove his motorcycle,

laden with weathered duffel bags, rolled-up blankets

and a handmade guitar case strapped to the sissy bar,

displaying behind him lacquered scenes

of curvy women, the Blue Ridge Mountains

and two little girls wearing fur coats on a sunny day.

 

The gilded wooden guitar case, with its necessary shape,

looked like a sort of joyful coffin riding on its head

for the sixteen hundred cold, wet miles

from Colorado to Virginia.

He wore thermal underwear and worn-out Levi’s

and a surplus store fatigue coat over a jacket.

 

He was damp upon damp and had shivered for days

when he arrived early one morning,

resigned, relieved, tired.

The two little girls stretched open his clothes and blankets

on the morning grass, the red clay earth,

like offerings under the warm Virginia sun.

 

It was true, the sun had shone the morning he left Colorado,

as if to promise and plead, as if to tell a different story this time.

But he never trusted the sky over the Rockies—it was aloof

and its mood seemed to belittle him, to taunt his eastern ways,

his rumbling voice and slow accent,

his longing for a warmer place.

 

He’d grown tired of moody distance, of cold skies and chance

when he strapped every belonging he had to that motorcycle

and set out for home, for what he’d left behind,

for the mountains he loved, for the little girls, the blood red soil—

cold to the bone, determined

not to break another promise this time.

 

This poem first appeared in Ekphrasis 2016.

Gov. Roy Cooper says he will oppose efforts to open the mid-Atlantic coastline to offshore drilling.

North Carolina’s chief executive announced his opposition today at Fort Macon State Park in response to President Trump’s plan to reopen the federal five-year drilling plan to include North Carolina. Just last year, the Obama administration removed the mid-Atlantic from consideration. 

Cooper said offshore exploration and drilling aren’t worth the threats they pose to North Carolina’s fragile coastal environment and the coastal economy.

“There is a threat looming over this coastline that we love and the prosperity it brings, and that’s the threat of offshore drilling,” Cooper said. “As governor, I’m here to speak out and to take action against it. I can sum it up in four words: Not off our coast.”

The event was attended by a number of Sierrans, including the Croatan Group’s conservation chair Penny Hooper and chair Michael Murdoch (pictured with Cooper).

Cooper’s statement is a marked contrast to the position of his predecessor. Gov. Pat McCrory strongly endorsed offshore drilling throughout his administration, even though many communities along the coast and inland passed anti-drilling resolutions in 2014 and 2015. 

“Today Governor Cooper sent a strong, clear message to the Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry that our coast is not for sale,” Erin Carey, the NC Sierra Club’s Coastal Coordinator, said. “We thank Governor Cooper for his leadership and we support him in protecting our fragile marine ecosystem and our thriving coastal communities.”

Cooper’s announcement took place at the site of the annual Hands Across the Sands event at Fort Macon. Over the past several years, Sierrans and other concerned citizens have joined hands across the beach to express their support for protecting our coast. Sierra Club volunteers and staff attended today’s encouraging announcement.