Happy Birthday, West Virginia

Crows  are calling up on Big Sewell,
Might be wishing  happy birthday,
Singing .. "to you, caw, caw,
State of my heart,
Corn in the rows and
trees tall,"

We're a hundred fifty-one,
Born of a war between brothers,
To hear us tell it, we fought slavery,
To hear us tell it now,
But really, we were always separate,
Ask Ole Virginia,
We're rough in our ways,
Honesty is like that, sometimes,

This day hovers between rain and sun,
Steam rises and this house smells old,
We could drink this air like tepid tea,

If we could secede again from
Taxation and misrepresentation,
We would split three ways,
Take up the blue and the red and the green
And fray the edges like an old quilt,

Our mountains would still rumble belly-deep for coal,
Our rivers run rust-red and bloody,
This is your song, West Virginia,

For the moment, we still walk trails deer-kept
After soldiers (one way or another) went home,
Some moments, we ignore what's happening here,
Tell folk tales, and take the quilts from old trunks, and
Rewrite the stories to suit a new day,

we know you've poisoned our water,
fracked-off your tainted tincture into old mines,
and indentured us once more with scrip,

But on this day, we have state pride,
We claim our motto (you may chisel it on our tombstones),
It's your day, West Virginia,
"Montani Semper Liberi"