Anna Cunningham
Bio
Longtime poet residing in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains
Stories (8/0)
The Secrets That Explode Us
“GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, GIRLS! THERE’S GAS IN THE HOUSE! GIRLS! GET OUT!” My mother shriek-bawls, obliterating the silence previously stilling the house. The next moment, my mother is sobbing, huddled on the porch within her four family members, who didn't smell anything like a gas leak. Her senses are shaken, still interrupted by the smell of sulfide and a vision of our house exploding.
By Anna Cunningham3 years ago in Families
Notes on Playing in Taut Ravines
When I was a young child, I had a wild heart. I was defiant and feral. When we moved out into the county from the heart of suburbia, I was five and a half years old…and I spent most of my time playing alone outside. I ranged the miles and miles of open, gently rolling hills behind our property, for years, without even a dog’s protection. And, closer to home, I played in a semi-deep ravine, the outlet of our neighbor’s deer pond. Its quiet rich earth seemingly always a moment’s breath away from breaking, the top crumbling down to meet the soft loamy bottom soil below. A drier and deeper ravine lead from a usually dry creek to our opposite neighbor’s stock pond. Both of these ravines were dangerous in their own right. The soft dark and deep chasm to the right of our property seemed a faery realm, but it was only held up by the roots of a perpetually falling burl oak. The other, a dry gash of parched earth, promised rattlers and other dangerous animals.
By Anna Cunningham3 years ago in Wander