Blue Ridge Home
Tall tales and poems in a secret mountain valley.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Bent Mountain
Oheka.
Watch
them, ‘round they go.
I straighten my legs
and lean back for the ride.
‘Tis always fun as they fly down the narrow road where we once walked.
(We
ran, too, and kissed leaning against the sweetgum,
your burnished fingers lifting me swiftly,
my
toes dripping clay from the creekbed.)
But, Oheka. The mountain of the Tutelo.
Full of
surprises for the sojourner.
As I said, quickly down the thin
lane
then whoosh
up
and around
and
down
then
up again
breaths held/breaths echoing down
dark green slides of
pine and bear and berry.
Watch
how the children laugh, eyes popping, a shine uncitylike.
Watch
her grab his hand as he tightens the grip on the wheel. His neck is a vein of
limestone now.
Their
grey soft pup in the far back, tongue out, head back and forth as they turn
and climb
and climb
again.
Off to
pick apples, to taste wine, to listen to the music of those who followed us.
A
melody, jarring a bit to the ears, but pleasant.
(Our songs were voices. You laid me gently on the yellow flowers
and hummed. The sun was setting over Oheka.
Deer stirred,
turkey
chased the locust. If my father heard us, he never said.
Your
bare feet led us now. I sat on you and dreamed, head back,
as
you whistled like the long brown bird.)
The car
stops, and the woman walks over to the old cemetery. She lays a wreath for
China Alice.
Grandmother.
They
move again, atop Oheka.
I take
many rides. I’ve held on to wagons as they climbed the dips. I’ve seen the
first autos,
mired
in red mud. Frustration in bowlers, then driving out. Buses and pickups, I’ve
ridden them all.
They
don’t see me, of course, ‘tho sometimes it seems a little one in the back,
with
pigtails as I had,
notices
a change in the air,
a sense
of good will,
a rope
through many seasons that touches her nose to mine, unseen.
Below,
the soft valley where we shared a long life.
We saw
war. But we were companions and lovers/I felt your heart and you mine
through
three generations then you stooped one day,
white
hair still thick,
fell
through the grasses.
I blew tiny kisses all over your quiet face, then covered you in
rushes.
Now, I
ride, and in my hidden pockets I carry you.
I feel
you quicken as the people climb. I see you walk through fall’s orange sun as
their glasses
tinkle
and their children play
and the woman and the
man touch as we touched
and
fall in arms at the river
As I
wait by the road for a ride back down.
Oheka.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Monday, September 1, 2014
Deer Me
I’ve mended the white rope fences since May,
Pleasure watching, smelling of horse and mischief.
Every night after a storm, the wet rope and red clay.
Every evening when the sun is setting over Floyd ridge.
Some mornings in a rush before work,
but what horse cares for work?
Now, summer ends.
The pasture is high due to complications.
Husband builds a sturdy pine fence
as the horse watches.
The sun sets more northerly now.
And I run out after supper
To mend fences again.
Great White watches.
Someone once said that animals know more than we.
Oui, so it may be.
In the far corner yards from the big stone,
two snorts.
Two quick wisps of movement.
Two clever and young
sisters,
taking off through the tall grass
winking with Pleasure.Sunday, August 4, 2013
Marigolds
In summer at Weyer’s Cave, my
grandmother’s garden
sifted through sunbeams in a green,
fenced square beneath the screened-in porch
where in the heat of the day she
would let me
sit on the cool divan and sort
through the browned photographs
of my uncles, at war, thin, tan and
grinning
in heated lands of lost flowers.
My grandmother’s garden had zinnias
and marigolds,
blue hollyhocks, and bumblebees
amidst the cabbage, and pole beans,
tomatoes.
The barn was further down the path
and further yet the little creek
where my grandfather taught me to catch bream
and cook them in a skillet at breakfast
with buttermilk biscuits and cow’s soft butter.
The white-washed shed held secrets
of jellies, and last fall’s hams,
and a pool table.
The men we didn’t know were in the
next town planning, they were, talking big,
thinking to stretch a highway and
dig an airport in our Valley before another war.
But August at the farm, along the
dusty lane, above the spirea,
a tomboy napped and
the sepia’d shots of brave uncles slid
like dew-grass to the floor.Sunday, May 19, 2013
Starting to write, in earnest
First chapter (with many edits ahead), in rough format, four characters created, three in 1690 and one so far in 2013. A few excerpts:
Bia understood numbers and in her camp the Tutelo men from the eight hills brought her grain and hides to count and pack...
...a sound never heard as though the mountain’s high boulder had been picked up by the sky and flung in one breath through the maqiga...
Staeka dipped his hands into the cool water and as he brought them up, a red sluice covered his long fingers.
Bia understood numbers and in her camp the Tutelo men from the eight hills brought her grain and hides to count and pack...
...a sound never heard as though the mountain’s high boulder had been picked up by the sky and flung in one breath through the maqiga...
Staeka dipped his hands into the cool water and as he brought them up, a red sluice covered his long fingers.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Hey, Sugar
Tangerine fur on Great White full of
steamed energy
at three still young
bouncing, ready for the mocker who waits on spring,
three snowfalls in a row
with smoked mist rising
yellow rolling buses on the road beyond in slush
chilled No-Name Creek
morn of the horse
searching the pasture
for new fescue after winter of teases, winter of curling by
tall fires,
winter of silly slides down sloped ridges passing black
birds
winking
tossing sweet balls of cream’d white
to forget the chill
to seek green tips ‘mongst flakes
to think of the next, not the then, and swim in softness
through the mist.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
at the Paddock
just a piece of a poem this time, as an illustrated short story begins to take shape:
So it was on the crispest of January days, as the air left
the hills for the tall blue sky
that the man was amidst his chores,
into the barn and out as every other day...
Till the horse reared
And
slanted her puddled eyes toward the man’s distress...Friday, January 25, 2013
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