Several years ago, I made of copy of the following poem found handwritten on the title page of a book of poetry by
Richard Hugo and signed "Dick Hugo." It goes out to the residents of Kansas, which isn't literally a mountain town, but probably feels like one today:
When your car is fixed you head on northSticking with the highway, telling yourself
if you'd gone it would have been no fun.
Mountain towns are lovely, hung way away like that, throbbing in light. But stay in one two hours. You pat your car and say Let's go, friend. You drive off never hearing the bruised girl in the convent screaming take me with you. I am not a nun.