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The Carter Scratch

R.T. Smith 
What solitude and simmer gave birth
to this sweet mix, one country woman
strumming a duet, melody running
the bass but the up strings
thumb-brushed for back-up rhythm?
It’s a mystery how her touch
contrived what we call the Carter scratch.
Maybe it was mischief in her black guitar.
Maybe the Clinch Mountains are to blame.

Her fingers were deft but leathered
from scraping in the hardscrabble earth
to snatch weeds from the bean vines
and strong as claws from plucking chickens
or shucking the stubborn corn.
She’d heard the river fast over rapids
and smooth at the soothing ford,

so Maybelle rocked in the dark parlor
to raise the cadence—“The Storms
Are on the Ocean,” “Bury Me Under
the Weeping Willow.”  Stitch by stitch,
she improvised an outlaw style, and after
the Bristol Sessions the whisper
talk in Nashville was, “These ridgers
can pick.”  She played like sisters

and kept her Gibson warm in the kitchen.
Her nails were sharp as talons.
To keep herself busy, she’d sing
and hum and whistle—hymn of the spirit,
skimp and yearn of the stricken flesh— 
fret and frail the strings to bliss.
The coffee boiled and corncakes frizzled.
Maybelle called herself a “Nickelsville hick”
and often played at being rapt and simple,

as her nimble hands gave country music
its intricate, quintessential lick.
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