Odd One Out

The moon is a selfish slice
Like a piece of muskmelon
Given by a miserly aunt.
Laid carefully in the sky
That is deep blue
Like the flower
Of a deadly nightshade
Hidden in the garden
Next to the tomato plants.
Cousins, yes
But how different their fruits.

Dream My Dreams

Dream my dreams
Walk in them
Through the hills
Of my home.

Taste the sweet water
Drawn from the well
Of my remembering
Sip it slow.

Run through tall grasses
To follow the fleeing deer
Run hard though you know
The race is not yours to win.

Sit still in a hayloft
Watching through the door
Seeing the world
Secret and hidden from all.

Dream my dreams
Sit and watch the joy
The comfort of the mountains
The harmony of the hills.

Can You See?

One of the greatest fears as I write about the hills and hollers of Appalachia, the mountains of my youth and the mountains that will cradle me as I age, is that when the reader looks they will not see what I see.  I fear that when you, dear reader, look into my little part of the mountains you will see only trees, thick woods and will walk right past the wonders I speak of so often.

I suppose that I am something like human rose colored glasses.  Showing you a world that is so easily common, but so particularly wonderful to those that will stop and feel the earth neath their feet, smell the sweetness of the mountain laurel or sourwood, see the richness of the greens that make up the hillside of trees, brush and sweet grasses.

I would love to dip a bucket of water, taste it and offer you a glass (maybe in a mason jar reserved for the most important of visitors) just as a wine steward would in a New York restaurant... waiting for you to smell the subtle nuances of the spring water, to know that cress grows just up the creek and filters the spring water to give it the sweetness just lingering on your palate.

I would have you taste the red and white acorn with me to show you that the red has more tannin in it and it is bitter, so the deer and turkey naturally leave it till last.  Once you would taste you would always know as you see the deer kick through the leaves looking for the sweet white oak acorns.

We would pull up a little sassafras sapling and wipe the dirt away to make tea from the root, pour sourwood honey in it bought from my neighbor and sip from old  and chipped china cups left me by Great Aunts who lived and died in the hills and who await the last trumpet on a hillside in Clay County, Kentucky.

I am a voice, crying in the wilderness, yes.  My cry is not one of repentance, but a cry to stop, look to the hills from which we, many of us came.  Listen to our hearts and hear the heart cry that calls to us, feel the beat of the heart of the mountain in our very chests and know we are connected, blood, bones, flesh and spirit to the hills.

"Come home, come home, come home" is the cry of homestead and hidden holler.  There is a place for us.  It is home, it is us, it is Appalachia.

Heart and Soul

The woods were glorious last weekend.  All around my small cabin in the hills fall was paintin' lovely scenes.  Mom Nature artfully draped a mountain mist on the shoulders of tall oaks and down below, closer to the ground, wrapped it around on holly, sassafras and mountain laurel.

The deer walked slowly all day long through the trees, kickin' up acorns.  Preferrin' white oak acorns, they taste better, but eatin' the red oak ones when they were around.  I laughed often as I walked the woods.  More than once my path met theirs and they would stomp like spoiled youngin's, mad I was interruptin' their meal, tryin' to get me to move as I would freeze for long moments to watch them.  Almost always their tail would eventually rise and they would run for a short distance.  A whistle from me and they would pause, turn and circle round to see what and who I was.

It was an uneasy truce most of the time.

One morning I left the cabin at 5:30 and went to sit in the woods to see the sunrise.  I must confess that I rose too early and it was well over an hour before the hint of morning.  I was dressed well enough, so I was not cold.  I sat against a tree and dozed (one of my favorite early morning things to do) as I listened for the hills to come alive with a new dawn.

I first heard the birds wake and start their morning calls. It is amazing how they seem to wake as one, to sing and call and fly from bush to tree, all in harmony, as if it is a great play and they have received their cue from the stage manager, "now, fly and chirp".

The squirrels are not too long in bed after the birds send a wake up call.  An untrained ear might think it is a deer or larger animal in the woods walking along, but I have heard the jump, pause, jump and run of grey squirrel and the fox squirrel, their larger cousin too often to be taken in by their ruse.

Finally I hear a hesitant movement, the pushin' aside of leaves in an unendin' seach for fodder.  A few deer make their way up the gully below me.  I watch carefully through the trees and brush as a magnificent 10 point buck, Grandfather of the herd, makes his way through the leaves, pickin' up acorns and chewing as he ponders the woods.  At one point I think he spies me.  He looks warily but then relaxes and lowers his head, pickin' up an acorn with his tender lips and chewing carefully, savoring the white oak nuts he finds.

I am a country boy, I do not apologize for my desire to be the hunter, bring home food for my family.  Not today though... and not this old feller.  He would be tough as nails an' gamy, man oh man.  A trophy, yes, but not fittin' for the table.  That, dear cousin is the difference between a city and country boy.  We are a part of the world, a tight fitting piece in a world that has lost familiarity to most folks.  A world that we have insulated ourselves from.  Like my ancestors, Scots, Irish, Welsh, Melungeon, Cherokee, Powhatan and Choctaw who lived in the Appalachias, we were taught to live in and use the wealth of the hills, not to waste, to know we are a part.

Today though, I am a mountain philosopher, a poet watching a verse, walking softly, rhyming with the woods and forming stories in my mind.  Yes, I taste and see that this is good, I feel and hear his heart beat, listen to him snort.  I want to chase him, win him, to be the victor and taste the victory.  I want to be the brave, the hunter, the mountain man preparing for winter.  I am the spy instead, the sneak, the laughing victor who has hidden and fooled the wary buck.

With that I know I am content, happy to watch this day.  Happy to feel the interweaving that makes me an Appalachian, to feel the tug of the hunt, but to know in my heart that there is no need, so sitting, listenin' to the turkey cluck in the distance, watch this ancient deer wander off is enough.

I hear the heartbeat of the mountains in me as I sit,connected to the very earth that is the lifeblood of folks like me.  It is the mountains and I am theirs, heart and soul.

Night wonders

Serendipity woke me
Just a few nights ago
Early in the morning
I was up and opening the door
To my cabin in the hills.

Standing in the light
From a light high
On an electric pole
Stood three deer
Eating acorns
Enjoying the early morning
Just a few yards
From my cabin door.

I paused in wonder
Not sure what had
Awakened me.
Nor why I stepped
To the front door
And looked out
On the morning.

They were not sure
What I was
Or why I stepped into
Their breaking fast.
Cautiously one came
Closer and closer still
Stomping a foot
Trying to make me move.

I would not
Did not move.
Filled with excitement,
I knew even a slight motion
Would end that moment
Of serendipity.

Wanting it to go on forever
I grinned and watched the show.
Then, as quick as a tremor
A tail went up.
All three looked at me.
Tails up, a few steps
Then a run into the woods
Hard and heart pounding
As the fled for safety.

I whistled
They stopped
Wonderment and curiosity
They circled and watched me now.
Stomping a foot
Till I moved
And went inside
Back to bed.

It was a wonderment.