Barry loves hiking in the Black Mountains of North Carolina, about sixty miles from home, and one of the places he loves.

Barry has previously visited Riehlife to chat about North Carolina hill country and his work (click here).

IN THAT PECULIAR SPACE

by Barry Yelton

At the edge of the universe

a small star spins and pulses

at the very precipice of infinity.

singularity.

where time and space run out...

the curiousness of it is that

it stands at about the center

of a dream I once had

where a small girl walked

along the edge of a pond

amid the green of springtime

and she held a quivering

butterfly in her tiny hand

only to crush the life out of it...

and I think of that star

alone in such vastness

and I wonder again at the beyond

where the universe runs out

of infinity and then

what then?

it must be loneliness.

what else could reside

where even a vacuum cannot?

Barry says:

As to my work, I am a bit of a poet, a bit of a novelist, and a whole lot of Southern. I come from the hill country of North Carolina, which is a unique place unto itself. Our accents tend to have a bit more twang and a little less honey than those you hear in the movies. We were also ambivalent about secession, unlike our rabid cousins in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana.

You can keep up-to-date on Barry and his writing by clicking here.