I wondered why on one foot was a glass
slipper and on the other a muddy boot.
Facts prove she is the daughter of
sturdy Appalachian parents,
father a coal miner and mother a
home- and garden- and meal-maker
of the pioneer sort.
Her birth was duly recorded
in county records.
But in her country heart was
at birth placed a second soul,
to grow into one with the first,
the soul of an infant Celtic princess,
the soul of an infant girl of a band
despised and displaced and finally
pressed to the greatest extremity
and slain by Angles.
The soul of that royal infant was dispossessed
and came to rest in the heart
of an Appalachian girl.
A kind of "favorable soil",
a daughter of Celtic parents
(with some Cherokee for hybrid vigor).
Fair, with auburn hair.
A white rose in muddy boots.
From an ancient line.