MOUNTAIN WOMAN

HERE, WHERE I AM: THE WORK OF WINTER

2012-02-20T07:05:00.000-08:00

TSUGA, BY ADAM BIGELOW

2012-02-17T05:40:00.000-08:00

Adam Bigelow is a horticulturalist, amateur botanist, organic gardener, musician, community activist, environmentalist and currently a member of The Great American Job Hunt. Add to that description "poet." He recently sent me this poem, as part of my Guest Blogger project.

The hemlock, like so many of our trees, is threatened. Adam calls the dead and dying ones ghosts, haunting us, as well they should. This morning, awake early after my husband's rising at 6:00 a.m. to hike Cove Mountain, I look out the window at my own trees, the ones that greet me each dawn, and remember how trees, the Green Gods as I call them, have gathered around me all my life, beginning with the live oaks from my childhood. I would wake up just as light was filtering down through their branches and watch them slowly take shape as another day began.

I've included a brief definition of Tsuga, to introduce Adam's poem. We need our scientific definitions, of course, but we need our poems, too, connecting us to the world around us in ways that definitions cannot.

Tsuga ( /ˈsuːɡə/,^[1] from Japanese: 栂 (ツガ), the name of Tsuga sieboldii) is a genus of conifersin the family Pinaceae. The common name hemlock is derived from a perceived similarity in the smell of its crushed foliage to that of the unrelated plant poison hemlock.

Unlike poison hemlock (Conium), the species of Tsuga are not poisonous.

TSUGA

The ghost trees haunt the trailside

(soon they will be falling)

a stark contrast to the green of the mountains,

they stand. Some still flush green tips

you know, the edible part?

But most have turned grey,

the color of gravestones,

as if marking their own demise.

The ghost trees haunt the creekside

standing like smokestacks burning through the night.

Climate change, to the trout,

and the crawdad,

the caddis fly, and the hellbender

who depend on coolness to thrive

(soon they will be falling, one by one)

The ghost trees haunt the lakeshore

(soon they will be falling)

creaking like masts in the wind,

this haunted pirateship droops with moss and death

As it awaits gravity, and duff.

Soon they will be falling.

There’ll be no stump sprouts

To mark their place,

No young leaves to point to and say,

“There, there one stood.

Before invasion took them away!”

like the mighty that have fallen before.

Soon the ghost trees will be fallen

and rotted away, with

nothing left to remind us.

Once the trees have gone,

and there remain none for

the invader to feast upon,

the seed bed can burst forth with life,

and Tsuga will rise again

to the canopy.

Until then,

it remains

for us to remember.

---Adam Bigelow

OUR NAMESHAWL, PART I

2012-02-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

Newfound Gap

Shortly after New Year's I invited my readers to share the names of places they loved, so that we could weave a shawl

of names to keep us warm through the dark times.

Here is the first part of that weave. More will follow.

NAMESHAWL

Bandana, always

Bandana, Hilda proclaims,

and Grey sings Ocracoke, Ocracoke,

Ocracoke, like the spring peepers every

March, making the meadow

beneath me in Cullowhee vibrate

like violin strings. It's Frog Level,

no doubt about it, and Cow Mire

just up the hill, Eureka

Springs forth, that’s it, here

Jekyll Island

it is, Grab a Nickel and head out

to find home before it gets lost beneath

water like Glen Canyon

and the debris from mountains

whose peaks have been blasted

to namelessness. Never again,

pray the Sisters of Loretto Moutherhouse,

of Philippi, and the hoot owls

of Nacoochee and Chattahoochee,

and Sautee. Don’t mess with Bigwitch

and Booger Branch. Listen, the Bone Valley

waits for us all if we don’t love where home

lives, atop Steen’s Mountain, maybe,

or Dufur, or the beaches of Edisto

or Eleuthera, the island that means

:”freedom. ” Walk head first into the wind

as if reaching the apex of Max

Patch, and Buzzard’s Roost, Lover’s

Leap, leaning toward Ravensford,

Trackrock, stomping

toward Boone, till at last you must

Bend at the Knees

and give thanks for Molasses Creek,

Laurel Ridge, and Dolly Sods.

Mount Hood, Oregon

HERE, WHERE I AM: PAT RIVIERE-SEEL: COFFEE WITH THE POET

2012-02-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

HERE, WHERE I AM: PAT RIVIERE-SEEL: COFFEE WITH THE POET

The Holiness of the Mountaintop

2012-01-08T06:58:00.000-08:00

January 8, 2012

Today, members of St. James Episcopal Church, Knoxville, Tennessee, are praying for creation…

From Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains

Teach us, O Lord, to listen to the Earth, our mother.

Grant us the wisdom and will to preserve all your creation, restoring to wholeness everywhere that we have carelessly left our mark.

Especially, Lord, we pray for the Appalachian mountains. Guide us in your will to defend their sanctity. For just as Abraham, Moses, Elijah and all your saints and prophets met you on the holiness of the mountaintop, we do also name our mountains “holy,” claiming our right to defend them from all who seek their harm and destruction.

And yet, we pray also for those people, that they may find meaningful employment without destroying your creation

Lord, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

Amen.

DAY 18 OF FORTY DAYS OF PRAYER FOR OUR MOUNTAINS

2011-12-19T05:57:00.000-08:00

Today, Rev. William Boys and members of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, are praying for creation…

A Poem Prayer (or Hymn*) Concerning Mountain-top Removal Coal Mining

by William E. Boys, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

God, whose voice breaks rocks asunder,
Spirit, brooding o'er the deep:
Your good world evokes our wonder,
Beauty that we long to keep.

Yet, weak stewards, wielding thunder,
Blasting, moving, we debase --
With our knowledge oft we plunder,
Wanton, wasteful -- cure our ways.

Mountain people’s spirits plummet;
Hear our prayer; their needs be seen:
Peace be giv'n to mountain summits,
Let their streams run fresh and clean.

Amen.

* Could be sung to any familiar 8.7.8.7 hymn tune fitting a trochee (but not iambic) foot,
some examples drawn from Evangelical Lutheran Worship are:
Galilee, “Jesus Calls Us, O’er the Tumult” 696
Merton, “Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding” 246
Omni Die, “For the Bread Which You Have Broken” 494
Rathbun, “In the Cross of Christ I Glory” 324
Stuttgart, “Crashing Waters at Creation” 455
The Servant Song, “Will You Let Me Be Your Servant” 659.

DAY 17 of the 40 DAYS OF PRAYER FOR OUR MOUNTAINS

2011-12-18T07:07:00.000-08:00

December Sunset

Day 17 of the 40 Days of Prayer

from LEAF

December 18, 2011

Today, Steve Ferguson and members of Community Church, Mountain City, Tennessee, are praying for creation…

O Blessed Christ
Precious treasury of compassion,
Bestower of supreme inner peace,

You who love all beings without exception,
Are the source of happiness and goodness,
Creator of this universe whose speech is supreme, a purifying nectar,
And your love a refuge for all living things.

Lead us to awakening.

With folded hands we turn to you,
Supreme unchanging friend,
We request from the depths of our hearts:

Please give us the light of your wisdom,
To dispel the darkness of our minds
And to heal the destruction of our greed and insensitivity
Towards your delicate creation.

Please nourish us with your goodness,
That we in turn, will nourish all beings
With a bounty of unceasing gratefulness,

Through your compassionate intention,
Your blessings and virtuous deeds,
And a strong willingness to rely on you,

May all the useless destruction of sacred creation cease,
And all happiness and joy return,
To all of God's mountains, rivers and streams.
That all living things be cherished again,
Upon your earth,
And in the hearts of men.

Amen.

LEAF

FIFTY MOUNTAIN WOMEN!

2011-12-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

What a great gathering of women in this anthology edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham! And what a great Christmas gathering of several of those writers at the Coffee with the Poets at City Lights Bookstore this past Thursday! We nearly had standing room only, and I can't credit the Milky Way Cake of my Piece of Cake Laureate poem fame, though the plate was clean by the time we left. The credit belongs to these writers and the two savvy editors who put together a diverse group of voices from 50 Western North Carolina Women Writers.

Books and cake and coffee! It doesn't get any better than this!

For a wonderful post about this anthology, please go to Kaye W. Barley's fine blog, Meanderings and Musings. Here you will find information for ordering this book, as well as details about the cover artist and the editors.

You can order WOMAN'S SPACES, WOMAN'S PLACES online from City Lights Bookstore.

Writers who read from their anthologized work are standing behind the editors, Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. ( I'm sitting beside Celia.) They are, from left to right, Beth Moore, Janie Mae Jones McKinley, Marian Gowan, Martha O'Quinn, Jennifer McGaha, JC Walkup, and Glenda Beall.

Celia and Nancy asked me to begin by reading Peg Rhodes' poem, which I was happy to do, finding it moving and oh so resonant at this stage in my life. Peg was unable to be with us.

TRANSITION

I am older and wiser now.

I have climbed to the peak

Of Transition Mountain

Where footing is rocky and sharp

And the downward view

Is perilous and real.

Courage, my heart, as you scan

The lonely panorama of Aging.

Make the careful descent

From denial to acceptance

Aware of the wild flowers

Peeping from the crevices.

Adjustment is the order of the day--

And the long nights.

***Peg Rhodes, political activist and humanist, has written poems most of her life. At ninety, she continues to write and publish.

Janie Mae Jones McKinley reads from her selection, "On Bear Mountain." We could all go with her as she remembered walking with her grandfather to Naybin's general store, the aromas of onions, hoop cheese, fertilizer, and oiled wood floors filling our imaginations. And candy! She had even brought small bags of old-fashioned penny candy to give to each one of us.

JC Walkup chats with Glenda Beall before the program begins. J.C's towel buying saga left us laughing like school girls, while Glenda's moving poem about her grief after the loss of her husband left us hushed.

Martha O'Quinn, Marian Gowan, and Beth Moore get caffeinated before Celia and Nancy begin their introduction. Martha's poem gave us imagery to carry home, as good poetry always manages to do. Marian, a quilter, described a special quilting retreat on the NC coast. (Maybe I should finally take up quilting before it's too late!) And Beth's lovely recollection a trip to Kenya captured the spirit of the season in a profound and lyrical way.

Jennifer McGaha's "Vampire Run" was hilarious and expertly crafted. But don't take my word about how good these poems and stories are.

Over the next few days I'll be posting them, or excerpts, to highlight that morning's celebration of mountain women's voices. Keep dropping by to read them.
And order the book for Christmas, if you haven't already. It's not too late!

COMPOST

2011-11-25T06:33:00.001-08:00

A poem for the end of November and yet another year added to my ledger of days. And in memory of Ruth Stone, who died just hours ago, at the age of 96. She was and remains a poet who gives me the strength to celebrate an aging woman's vision and imagination.

Letting

go, the leaves try
to teach
me a thing or
two yet
about dying
as if I have not
seen enough
of that falling
away to last
lifetimes of
wondering what if
I crumpled
and fell
to the ground,
who would look
at me, murmuring
oh, what a
graceful
departure, that
old woman floating
so gently
down onto
the compost pile.

from Catching Light, LSU Press

Grave Stone

2011-11-12T13:01:00.001-08:00

Primitive gravestone from the 1830's in the Smoky Mountains

Grave Stone

So that the dead might always

be able to see mountains circled with clouds

and fog, spiraled by hawks and the currents

they ride, we bury each of our gone

ones as high as we can astride hillsides.

We bring to their chiseled names

flowers and muttered words, sometimes

our songs, if our throats have been loosened

from sorrow at last. We lie down

in the spring grass beside them. We stand

in the snow, all a'shiver with emptiness.

Summer we scatter our memories

over their slabs, our dusty hands

opening onto another day's leave taking.

El Dia de los Muertos, or, in our culture, All Souls Day

2011-11-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

The second day of November is All Souls Day, or in Mexico and Central America, El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, when our gone ones are honored with candles, their favorite foods, and memories of their lives with us. My sister SW Georgian, Glenda Council Beall, remembers her kinfolk in this poem that seems a fitting expression of All Souls Day. The closing line, "closed under sod upon a quiet hill" rings with the voices of the Romantic poets I love. Glenda now lives in the WNC mountains, like me, over in Hayesville, where she has been active in the NC Writers Network West and now has her own writing circle (see below). Her blog sites are well worth visiting.

Stop the Trees from Growing

Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again,

but I came here today, to where Mother nurtured

my spirit and where Daddy kept the roof over my head;

where the fire warmed my bed at night, when winter winds

howled ‘round the corners of the old frame house

when this flat farm with ponds and pines was home.

It’s not the buildings all torn down, the homes of friends

that now hold dreams of families I don’t know ─ it is

the trees.

Nothing stopped the trees from growing, growing ever taller,

till they dwarfed the house, the barn, the back yard,

now a tiny garden towered over by a lilac tree

a pear tree and one giant oak.

I traveled from what is and has been home for fifteen years,

to visit that which was, but is not home anymore.

Like you, Thomas Wolfe, I can’t go home again.

That place I once called home is gone.

Forever gone, except in memories that linger like lazy chimney smoke

spiraling through my mind, thoughts that surge a yearning deep within

to hear the laughing voices, see the kindly eyes – stilled voices, loving eyes,

closed under sod upon a quiet hill.

Glenda Beall grew up in southwest Georgia where the land is flat and the horizon green pines. Her home is now in western North Carolina where she feels she has always belonged. Her poetry chapbook, Now Might as Well be Then, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. Her poetry has appeared in Kakalak, 2009 Anthology of North Carolina Poets, as well as literary journals, Main Street Rag, Appalachian Heritage, and online journals, Wild Goose Poetry Review and Future Cycle Poetry. She is director and owner of Writers Circle, a studio fin Hayesville, NC for writing and writers. She also teaches at the John C. Campbell Folk School and Tri-County Community College.

Glenda Council Beall

www.profilesandpedigrees.blogspot

www.glendacouncilbeall.blogspot.co

ALL HALLOWS

2011-11-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

These powerful days around the Celtic New Year have always pulled at my soul. Today is All Saints Day or All Hallows. I remember a poem of Louise Gluck's that I loved many years ago. I'd say it's haunted me ever since I first read it and remains a favorite, although I've found her later work less compelling. My sequence HALLOWS follows Gluck's poem. This was written for my grandmother, who is the "saint" in the second section; the third honors All Souls Day, also known as El Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico and Central America. For All Souls Day (tomorrow), I will share a poem by my friend Glenda Beall, who lives in Hayesville, North Carolina

ALL HALLOWS

Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
Sleep in their blue yoke,
The fields having been
Picked clean, the sheaves
Bound evenly and piled at the roadside
Among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
Of harvest or pestilence
And the wife leaning out the window
With her hand extended, as in payment,
And the seeds
Distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

Louise Gluck

Hallows

These leaves at my window,

death-speckled black oak and blood-maple,

fall to the earth into which

she was sealed, leaving me

to imagine I see through the hollows

of what were her eyes how another day

breaks on the backs of the scrub pines

that stand up to welcome it.

She was no saint.

She never fasted,

and if she prayed,

I never heard her

aside from the Lawsy

she uttered as down

she sank onto the dark

of the chamber pot

while I tried to be sleeping.

She stirred up the fire

to a roar every morning and beat

the dough smooth, shoved it into the oven

to bake and be eaten. When I hear Pavarotti

sing Panis Angelicus, I see her hands

deep in the dough bowl,

and I hear the fire in the stove rumble,

I hear her clucking and sighing,

she who could never on this earth

deliver unto any table a dry piece of cornbread,

whose old-fashioned cakes

that lay solid as flesh on the plates

put to shame every paper-thin

slice of the town-ladies’ angelfood cakes.

Any honest- to-god angel

would have preferred them,

a dollop of whipped cream atop

every thick slice and after that, oh,

just a touch of her Christmas divinity.

Los Muertos. The dead.

They are out there this morning,

in the woods with the busy squirrels

laying up treasures on earth,

this heaven of acorns and walnuts.

This granary.

These last dawns before the leaves go,

I wake early to watch from the window

my dead ones out there in the woods

leaf by leaf come

to rest on the ground

where at last they have nothing

to say beyond what’s meant

to lie on the earth and be claimed by it.

from Coming To Rest, LSU Press

MOTHER TREES

2011-10-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

On the Saturday of the 100,000 Poets for Change Day, which also happened to be Western Carolina University's Mountain Heritage Day, I sent my poem "Mountain Time" to our NC legislatures and to our Jackson County Commissioners. Poets don't really expect to get responses to their work from legislators and other busy people in government.

But lo and behold, I received from Commissioner Doug Cody a response about living here in these mountains. Turns out we have friends in common and a common interest in preserving our heritage.

A few weeks later, I emailed him my poem "Timberline," and just yesterday, he emailed this sensitive, moving response. He has given me permission to share his reply, which I do gladly, along with the hope that we have more mountain men like Mr. Cody willing to take care of the "mother trees" that keep our forests alive.

"A beautiful but sad description of the slow, agonizing demise of that magnificent sentinal of the forest, the mighty Hemlock. It is so degrading for this beautiful giant to be felled by a cotton-draped gnat. I am doing my best to save several of the larger specimens on my property, so far with great success. One 75 foot tall specimen I call "the Mother Tree" graces the entrance to my driveway. I named her that because she is loaded with cones every year and over the years she has given birth to literally hundreds of offspring. Unfortunately, I have been unable to save most of little ones but "Mother Tree" is alive and well. I will attach a photo of her with one of her cones still attached. When doing my chores I purposely caress her branches just to enjoy that subtle Hemlock fragrance. As long as I am able, "Mother Tree's" circle of life will not be broken. "

I told Mr. Cody that I had a Mother Tree, too, down in SW Georgia where I grew up, an old oak
I sat under many an afternoon.

Here's a poem by my friend and hair stylist Sara Bishop Morgan, who loves trees, too. Sara was one year ahead of my daughter at Smoky Mountain High School, so I've kept an eye on her ever since the two of them were in Girl Scouts together. Her son Elijah is now a Boy Scout! His poem "The Tree Seed of Love" was featured here in August.

How easy it is to become distracted, in a hurry, and so forget to "tree see." It happens to me all the time as I rush to Ingle's for more of this or that,

shuffling through the numerous lists I make to try to bring my life into some sort of order, searching yet again for my bifocals, my car keys, my checkbook.

TREE SEE

There are things on which I ponder

a bird chatterings, speaking of the coming spring.

Thoughts of what the trees whisper amongst each other,

as the new growth thrives up and under.

Magical winds doing their dances all just to ruffle

the leafy canopy in search of the greenest shade of green

Might I, if hushed I remain, hear their songs to God they sing?

All these I wonder while standing in the presence of these giants.

I feel so  small looking upward through their glory

And for just a time, the swaying of their branches have staved off my world's 
worry, their earthy scent filling my nostrils, 

I remembered to breathe, and tree see.

Sara Bishop Morgan

MY FIRST MEMORY

2011-10-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

We all carry memories that stretch back forever into our childhoods, and who knows if those memories are really the first ones, or if they tell their stories truthfully. How can we know if every detail of a memory is the way it actually was? We cling to enough of what happened to give that memory its lasting power, its way of helping us know who we are and where we come from.

This little poem tries to capture what I've come to think of as my first memory. I can feel the heat of the wood stove, feel my grandmother's hands as she buttoned my dress, see the light off the car windows outside. It was Saturday. The wind was everywhere. We were going into town, that small Southern town that on Saturday became the center of the universe. Cold was coming on fast. Halloween was approaching. The two women dressing me became larger than life as I remember this afternoon. And the wind whistling and howling around the house! Such a mystery to me, that wind could take the house I loved and make it sing. This poem still gives me pleasure because it keeps that memory fresh and lively.

Cold Spell

I remember the stove’s black belly
we huddled beside that afternoon,
the three of us,
two old and one young,
the wind whistling round the house.
It’s the corners make it sing, my grandmother said,
the sharp edges.
The windows rattled,
the day outside bright as the sun
on the Studebaker’s windshield I squinted
toward while they were dressing me
in my little white slip edged in lace,
and my little pink socks cuffed in lace,
and my Sunday-best dress with the hem
hitched up every two inches
so I could see more lace whenever
I sashayed around.
Because I was a girl.
I was their girl.
Their hands on my body were cold,
their mouths clicked and chirped.
The wind howled.

from Catching Light, LSU Press

PEPPER POT SOUP

2011-10-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

At the first whisper of cool air in the fall, my husband asks me for Pepper Pot Soup. I began fixing this soup years ago with my ancient Joy of Cooking, pictured above. Look at the stains and splats of lord knows what on its pages. It no longer has covers. This was a wedding gift from Newt and June Smith, colleagues and friends who live in Tuckasegee, a few miles down the road from us.

Naturally you need peppers. I use several of them, along with onion, and strips of bacon sliced into small lengths. I saute these around in my iron "spider" as my grandmother called it, until they look ready to have stock added to them. This time I used a blend of chicken and vegetable stock that had in my freezer. I try to avoid store-bought stock, with its high sodium content and goodness knows what else in it.

My husband likes this soup HOT, so I add whatever comes to hand, most recently a fine jalapeno sauce from Stripling's General store outside Cordele. (Their logo: YOU NEVER SAUSAGE A PLACE.) No relation to my branch of Stripling. This worked its fiery magic. Highly recommended. Stripling's has a website and facebook page, so you can order online.
I'm a big fan of their locally baked cakes, the label being Just Scratchin', and I think their pound cakes are about the best I've ever tasted.
If you are outside Cordele, Ga. in the neighborhood of Lake Blackshear, you owe it to yourself to stop by Striplings and buy a cake, some hot sauce, and some freshly ground sausage. Their bacon looks pretty good, too.

While the soup was simmering, blending all those delicious autumnal flavors, I whipped up some cornbread, adding some hot sauce to it, as well. Then I let it stay too long in the oven, thanks to my laptop and facebook, so it needed a whole lot of butter on it to be palatable. I apologized to my husband for this oversight. He was so happy with the soup, though, that I don't think he minded.

Here's the recipe for the soup.

Cut into small pieces and saute in heavy saucepan till clear:
4 slices bacon,
Add and simmer for 5 minutes:
1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 cup minced celery
2 seeded, minced green peppers
(I tsp. marjoram or summer savory) I use what I have. Sage works ok.
Wash and cut into fine shreds:
3/4 lb. honeycomb Tripe------(No way. I've never used tripe. I remember it from childhood. But if you like it, go for it.)

Put into the above ingredients
8 cups brown stock
1 bay leaf
12 tsp. ground pepper (I use more.)
Bring this to the boiling point, add
I cup raw peeled and diced potatoes.
Simmer the soup, uncovered, until potatoes are tender.
Melt 2 tblspoons butter and stir in till blended 2 tablespoons flour.
Add a little of the soup to this mixture in a small stove proof vessel
and bring to boiling, then pour into rest of the soup. (I confess I usually just add this without boiling to the soup and stir well while it's thickening.)
Just before serving add 1/2 cup warm cream. ( Well, I usually add fat-free sour cream since I don't keep cream around the house. That works pretty well. Fat-free half and half would, too. Or, what the heck, if you want to go whole-hog, get some real cream at the store. Life is short.)

We love this recipe. You will, too.

WHISPERS OF MY BLOOD

2011-10-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

Mickey Mahaffey sent the words below as a comment on my last post, but I must give them their own post because they are drawn from his memoir Whispers Of My Blood, which I'm now reading. What a journey, what a transformation this book gives us, written in what comes closer to poetry than prose. Mickey is from Hendersonville, a former student of my husband's many years ago. He now lives in Mexico, where he conducts guided tours into Copper Canyon in Chihuahua. Go to his web site to read much more about him, watch a video, and learn about the Sierra Madre where he now lives.

"The rising flames of my campfire cast an ethereal glow across the meadow of green nettle and mayflowers and illuminate the trunks of the massive trees. Silhouettes of dead tress lean against the living ones, life and death interpenetrated, and the ones half rotted on the ground supply sustenance to untold species of burgeoning life. The electric buzz a million cicadas and crickets suffuse the wilderness. I sense the proximity of black bears and coyotes and rattlesnakes.
The presences of the living woods expose my egotisms. The clear light of the vital fire pierces my illusions of self-deception and consumes the false gods that bedim my vision.My blood whispers to me from the ancient of days.Now, nothing stands between my heart and the heart of the palpable earth. I sing quietly with the voice of my soul in the temple of the living and dying.
I imagine my death, my body rotting beneath the dirt like the trees in their holy cemetery. I see the worms and maggots, flies and gnats, vultures and four-legged beasts feasting upon my body. What was once a nightmare of horrors upon horrors is a sober reality. Rot and new birth interwoven. No more fantasies of angels and streets paved with gold; only the loamy dirt and life at the root of existence."

Mickey Mahaffey is a singular American explorer, a fearless saunterer across our modern-day dilemmas of faith and faithlessness, who has written a deeply personal and poetic memoir of his extraordinary life. Once a legendary Appalachian kid preacher and star athlete, Mahaffey's fall from grace led to him to an agonizing period on the streets, insane asylums, among shattered families and the dark woods of outcasts, until he began a journey of healing, literally walking himself back to a state of redemption. From the Blue Ridge of North Carolina, the hip streets of Asheville, to the remote canyons of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, Whispers of My Blood unfolds a spellbinding chronicle of a quest for forgiveness, love and renewal. ------- Jeff Biggers, American writer, editor, journalist, and critic

ROOTED

2011-10-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

   Opening my eyes in the morning, I turn to the window beside our bed. The trees are always there, this morning looking stoic against a gray sky. When I look straight ahead I see my full length mirror reflecting amber leaves through the sun room windows in my office. Just inches above that reflection hangs a painting by Cindy Davis: trees cradling a full moon, their roots reaching all the way down to the edge of the painting. They appear to be floating in a blue ether, these trees of a woman's imagination. Their roots delicate, yet determined.
   Humans were once thought to have sprung from trees. The image of Daphne being transformed into a tree to escape a lecherous Apollo rises up in my memory. She prays to the river god to save her and he turns her into a laurel tree. Just in the nick of time. At the edge of the threshold beyond which lies violation. How many women have wished to become such a tree, I wonder, sinking their roots into the soil where they live, free of the duties and dangers of womanhood?
   What do we do when the soil that we sink our roots into has become violated by what rises and flows from the power plants that enable us to turn the lights on when we awaken each morning? That enable me to lie late in bed (it's Saturday, after all) with my laptop, typing this meditation on trees?
   That the ground upon which we stand is being violated, that the river where my small daughter and I sat, throwing sticks into the current, has been woven through with contaminants I can't even pronounce , that the air itself teams with dust that is not the cosmic dust we've been told has circulated through space since the moment of creation but the dust from power plants, riding the currents for hundreds of miles, how do I hold that reality in my head this morning as I stare out my windows, feeling the usual surge of gratitude that I live in a place where not only can I see trees from every window of my house....but I can also shove my feet into my bedroom scuffs and go walk outside among them, drinking my second cup of coffee?

That's a long sentence, that one I just strung together. But it doesn't come close to linking all the images, the fears, the reflections I carry in my mind this morning, waking up after two days of hearing about and seeing what has been happening to our homeland here in the mountains. And beyond. "We are losing our homes," says seventh generation ballad singer and longtime friend Sheila Kay Adams, a native of nearby Madison County. We are losing the very "ground" of home, it seems, and not only the literal sod but also our connections to it and the people who live around us.
   The trees have always been my refuge, whether I stand at the window looking at them or go walking into their leafy presence. The Appalachian mountains are the "vegetation cradle" of North America. They have cradled us, as well. That cradle needs our care. Our tending.
   It needs our lullabyes, our love songs, our hands and minds watching over it.
   Maybe we should for a moment in our imaginations become Daphnes, feeling our roots sinking deep into soil, our leaves clinging or letting go, squirrels skittering over our branches while our dogs yap below, eager to give chase.
   Or maybe they are just pissed off because we have all suddenly disappeared and their supper bowls sit empty on the porch!

WNCSOS: The Ridges of Franklin NC Developer Dismisses Wildflower Hazardous-Land Data

2011-10-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

WNCSOS: The Ridges of Franklin NC Developer Dismisses Wildflower Hazardous-Land Data

BLACK LUNG, by R. T. Smith

2011-10-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

APPALACHIAN HERITAGE

The legacy of coal is one of environmental devastation and human exploitation. The poem below, by my friend R. T. Smith, author of numerous books of poetry and fiction, expresses that reality by focusing on the Appalachian singer and song-writer Hazel Dickens. Rod's poem gives voice to the grief and pain that has come from the mines and the blight of mountain-top removal. In the few days before Western Carolina University's ROOTED IN THE MOUNTAINS conference begins, I can think of no more powerful voice than this to sound the warning about the threats to the mountains we love.

Black lung

_______________

R. T. Smith

When Hazel Dickens watched her brother die

of the miner’s curse, the room shook with weeping,

and she thought, So much cold sweat, so many tears,

the womenfolk might’s well be mining salt.

As a child singing “Man of Constant Sorrow”

in the shadowed kitchen of a sharecropper’s shack,

she knew even hymns burned their truest

when you could hear keening beneath the praise.

Singing for the rights of ridgers and diggers,

she kept that note close, a ruined lung’s gasp.

Hazel sang lovelorn, ever angry for the hungry.

She learned Maybelle’s lick to teach the guitar

to mourn. In her heart she found a sound

with the beauty of redbuds stained dark

as a seam of blood coal—pick and drill, carbide

light, blind mules and men’s skin shiny

as a wet crow’s feather. She gave it throat

and breath, the lyrics edged across her teeth,

and would not be muzzled for the sake of tact

or cash. The maverick activist stood stern

in the city, her flowery skirt and blouse

plain that autumn day at the Folklife Fest.

Aiming for relief, she unleashed nervy words,

the feel of scars, dust deadly as pepper,

grief as wives turn widows and daughters

sob, the greed of companies restless to rob.

“Black lung, black lung” she wailed, “your hand’s

icy cold, as you reach for my life and you torture

my soul.” Could she picture poor Thurman

frozen in his coffin? She felt a mortal chill

riddle her bones. Even the hecklers hushed

when she finished with: “a good man is gone.”

In the bowels of the mountain, maybe a calm

touched the seam and the air felt sweet

and clean, but soon on hogback ridges

the riven earth was night-struck again, and men

underground breathed their last. Now we pray

whatever snow God allows will never halt

her hard song amid the tears and sweat.

Can we get an amen here before this whole

suffering country is sown with salt?

R.T. SMITH

HERE, WHERE I AM: SOUP--OR POTAGE, IF YOU WANT TO SOUND FRENCH

2011-10-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

HERE, WHERE I AM: SOUP--OR POTAGE, IF YOU WANT TO SOUND FRENCH

MOUNTAIN WOMAN: SUNDAY FIRE

2011-10-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

MOUNTAIN WOMAN: SUNDAY FIRE: Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves.... Elinor Wylie And so it has seemed, watching the wind scatter the fiery leaves...

SUNDAY FIRE

2011-10-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves....

Elinor Wylie

And so it has seemed, watching the wind scatter the fiery leaves hither and yon,

as we sit under our Tulip Poplar watching.

I want to gather them to me, hold them close. Cling to this day.

Else lie among them, breathing in the scent of autumn hastening away.

GUEST BLOGGER: BARBARA BATES SMITH

2011-10-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

When I first saw Barbara Bates Smith do her one woman show based on Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, I was so overcome that by the end, I needed a box of kleenex. I think Barbara was a bit taken aback by my emotional response! So was I. I had become Ivy Rowe as I listened to Barbara become Ivy--girlhood, childbirth, widowhood, old age. Each time I see Barbara perform, whether it's Lee's On Agate Hill or several of her short stories, I have a similar reaction, though I know by now to keep the tissue close by so as not to embarrass myself. Or Barbara.

I remember Barbara telling about presenting Ivy Rowe in Lee's hometown of Grundy, Virginia. The only correction Lee had to make during rehearsal was her pronunciation of "bury."

It had to be "burry." Yes, indeed. And I still remember the announcement in the Sylva Wal-mart a few years back, "Will the woman who wanted the chocolate covered churries please come to Health & Beauty." Barbara offers her post on the rewards of performing Lee's characters, followed by a video of the closing scene of On Agate Hill.

And for those of us in the Jackson County area, Barbara will be presenting a Christmas program, Deck the Halls with Southern Writers at the new Jackson County Library in Sylva on November 29th. She will read from work by Lee, Allen Gurganus, Truman Capote and she's included one of my own poems. Don't miss it. And don't worry if your memory is as fallible as mine. I'll keep reminding everybody about it.

Barbara Bates Smith as Ivy Rowe

Lee Smith

“She’s turned into a mountain woman. She’s moved to the mountains, she plays the dulcimer, she clogs, she’s taken up quilting. She’s turned into Ivy Rowe!” That’s what prizewinning novelist Lee Smith has said about me. I’m proud of that. An actress by trade, I’d been touring with my one-woman show, “Ivy Rowe,” based on the spunky Appalachian heroine of Lee’s novel, Fair and Tender Ladies. And I’d moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, a perfect base for touring. I’d taken a lot of teasing from my peers: “You’re just trying to become this mountain woman you’ve been portraying.” Yes! And“Ivy Rowe” and I are still going strong with close to 700 performances.

Lee says that when she wants to empower a heroine, she sends her to the mountains. And I myself have become further empowered thereby—adding a musical accompanist and other Lee Smith works such as “On Agate Hill” to my repertoire.

Lee asks if I ever get tired of playing Ivy Rowe. Never. I love it every time. If six months go by with no Ivy, I get restless. This mountain woman both grounds me and lifts me up. The way she looks life in the face, says yes to it, makes mistakes, but always manages to “keep on keepin’ on.” Sometimes I don’t know where she ends and I begin. I don’t care. I’m having too much fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zHwGI2sZ20&feature=player_embedded#!"

Guest Blogger: Julie Brooks Barbour

2011-10-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

View from Julie's grandparents' attic

The attic in the house where I grew up fascinated me, a treasure trove haunted by the past. My grandmother's sewing machine sat under one of the windows, her cedar chest of old clothing waited back in the eaves, spilling remnants of this woman I had never really known, herself a mountain woman who moved to south Georgia to teach school.

I loved looking out the windows at the yard and tool house grown small and strange, as if images from a storybook. The light that entered that dark repository always seemed to come from far off, to seem intrusive, as if darkness was the attic's natural state.

Julie Brooks Barbour, raised in the foothills of western North Carolina, has captured this ambiance of such an attic in all its mystery. The photos, by the way, are from her grandparents' attic. I can see that attic windows fascinated her as much as they still fascinate me.

My Grandparents’ Attic

The only unfinished area in the house, the air held me close,

pressing in, but I stayed, searching for what my grown cousins

left behind: comic books, wood burning kits, marked pages

of schoolwork, scattered among boxes for safekeeping

or one day’s garbage, the only facts of their childhoods.

They hit puberty before I was born. My father married late

so I rummaged alone, needing to study a cousin’s

handwritten vocabulary words, unfold game boards to trace

the patterns of boredom, turn a geode over in my hands

and stroke its spiny edges. The dark recesses of the attic

peered from a far corner, accessible only by the ability

to balance on plywood boards. Lace curtains hung at the windows,

gray with dust and dotted with dead flies, their cousins still trying

to find a way out at the corners, greeting me each day

with their small swarm. Those windows remained closed

throughout the year, slanted summer sunlight adding to the heat.

The few times she realized where I was headed, my grandmother

begged me not to go up to that room, aware of its appearance,

but I couldn’t stop. I had mysteries to solve: the rusted bed

with its flattened, stained mattress, the tubes of old paints,

stuffed animals boxed and waiting. Who was that room

waiting for? My family told few stories. They related only

childhood antics or what time dinner would be ready.

The old secrets stayed hidden, washed away each time

I cleaned the dust from my hands.

Originally from Shelby, Julie received her MFA in Creative Writing at UNC-Greensboro. Her poems are forthcoming in Kestrel and Migrations: Poetry and Prose for Life's Transitions. She currently lives in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan where she teaches at Lake Superior State University, and is founder and co-editor of the journal border crossing. As a sister alumna of UNC-G, I welcome her to my blog. Her poem carries me back to a place that continues to live in my memory.

Julie Brooks Barbour

SNAKE CHARMER

2011-09-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

My friend George Ellison, poet and naturalist writer here in the WNC mountains, has written about snakes coming down in the summer to lie along creek banks, hidden from the women who knelt creekside to draw water. This poem of mine springs from that detail as well as from magpie tales. Check back later to read my interview with George about his new work.

Snake Charmer

When she leaned down
to draw water, white neck
laid bare as she knelt with her jug,
thinking only of what she must do

next, the supper fire kindled,

the skillet set singing with grease

for the fritters,

the snake that lay
coiled inside dark rushes
struck. Had she been taught

how to charm him, she might have gone
home with only a story to tell,
the snake gazing into her eyes where
the full moon reflected her unflinching
womanly round of obedience to

what her blood sang as she journeyed

from duty to duty. How eye

to eye she coaxed the serpent
back into its silent repose
among sally grass,

the katydids tuning up,

the owl biding time before

out of the creekside's slick hiding

places, small night-time morsels
crept over the moist grasses,
into the moon's hungry glare.

KSB

You can find George's BLUE RIDGE NATURE JOURNAL, with gorgeous images by his wife Elizabeth, at amazon, or better yet, and your closest Indie bookstore.

MOUNTAIN HERITAGE DAY

2011-09-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, Western Carolina University's Mountain Heritage Day truly was a day to celebrate mountain culture. Before the large Fine and Performing Arts Center was built on the place where we could wander through exhibits or sit on hay bales and listen to music by David Holt and numerous other musicians, we would park on the outskirts of campus, near our house, and walk to the celebration. Even then, Mountain Heritage Day was changing, though. I recently found an essay I wrote for the Winston-Salem Journal back in the 90's. Here's a snippet from it.

   My friend Willa Mae Pressley, who was taught the art of quilting by her mother Delphia Potts, is no longer here. Nor do I see her sister Annie Lee with her cornshuck dolls exhibit. ( Annie Lee left us last September. Her family accepted the Mountain Heritage Award in her absence.)
   These days the contents of most booths tend toward the useless, the geegaws.
   The music is still the old music, though, and the Wild Hog Boys, from Mountain Rest, do a good turn with Bill Monroe’s songs.
   We sit on our hay bales and listen. Sometimes I sing along. My daughter looks embarrassed when I throw myself into Monroe’s “Walls of Time,” the lover hearing his dead sweetheart’s voice in the trees, the wind, singing through the walls of time.

   The walls of time grow thinner this time of year, as we move toward Halloween, that ancient Gaelic New Year, when what separates us from our world and the one gone before grows thinner and thinner until it becomes the sheerest of sheers, through which we might glimpse the other side. Today the sky has cleared, the leaves are beginning to turn. I am glad not to be walking among booths of the standard food (corn dogs and frybread that at last year's tasting seemed not as good as I remember...) and crafts no longer lovingly pieced or woven by women I once knew and loved. Mountain Heritage Day has become commodified. Pushed onto a leftover field behind the school my daughter once attended.

The walls of time separate me from Willa Mae, Annie Lee, David Holt, that haybale on which I sat and listened to hammer dulcimer music that sucked my spirit right out and into a timelessness that I can't begin to express. I wonder where the Wild Hog Boys are now? Are they still singing, "Come back to me, is my request"? I hope so. I hope the old songs, the old weavings and patterns come back to us in the midst of our busy contemporary, internet-driven lives.

I would not want to live without them. To be honest, I could not.

I do the best I can. I listen online to David Holt and Doc Watson sing "Shady Grove." I read the poetry of Jim Wayne Miller and Nancy Dillingham. The fiction of Lee Smith and Pam Duncan. I plug in my cd player, pull out Dolly Parton's "The Grass Is Blue" and "Little Sparrow." I stay home, out of the tourist crowd, watching the clouds shape-shifting over the mountains, listening, letting the leaves fall round me, remembering.

REMEMBRANCES OF ANNIE LEE, continued.

2011-09-16T05:55:00.000-07:00

by Norma Medford Clayton

(Re-reading Norma's eulogy for her mother makes me want to pull out certain sections and share some of my own memories about Annie Lee and her sister Willa Mae. I expect I'll be doing that over the next few months. Norma's remembrances are like a large colorful quilt, the pieces holding all sorts of connections and patterns for each one of us. If I were still teaching creative writing, I'd use it to urge my students to pick a piece and stitch it into their own stories. I invite you to do the same!)

I remember the love that you gave to all the children you babysat. You always took time to read to them, answer their questions and you let them participate in whatever you did - sweep the house, make a garden, make biscuits, and help in the kitchen. You allowed them to play dress up, play beauty shop or whatever else their imagination thought up. It didn't matter that they got flour all over the kitchen and dusting powder in the bedrooms. It didn't matter that the house wasn't immaculate, what mattered was that each child was treated as an important person and allowed to develop their imagination and perfect their skills. And of course you made them take the inevitable nap! These children will never forget the love and care you gave them. You helped form their personalities and shape their lives. Through your love and care you have touched many lives.

As those children grew up and started school you began to work more and more with your crafts. You were instrumental in founding Dogwood Crafters, you helped with Mountain Projects, and you began to teach your crafts to others. Soon you were known as the "Cornshuck Doll Lady." You have shared your knowledge with people of all ages. In particular you have made a lasting impression on school children as you taught them heritage crafts.

I also remember how frugal and saving you were. "Waste not, want not" was your favorite saying. You were the original recycler when recycling wasn't even known. You found a use for everything (you even made beautiful dresses for us out of feed sacks). I think Ron Blackburn compared our house to Hoyt Roberson's store - "It's in there if you can find it!" I know we girls drove you crazy because we weren't as saving as you were -- but we always knew you'd have it if we needed it!

I also remember the yards sales we loved to "hit." We've gotten some REAL bargains at them and it was a wonderful opportunity to make new friends and visit with old ones. When you got home you would meticulously label your new "treasures" with the name of the person, from whom you bought it and you would date it.

I remember all the craft shows that we've helped you with. You always worried that it was hard work for us girls… and it was, but I enjoyed them just as much as you did! I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of setting up, and I always enjoyed visiting with people as they passed by. I remember how you always gave discounts or "freebies" when someone bought something from you. You've probably given away more than you have sold. That was what made you so special - you cared more about others than yourself. You made your crafts for other's enjoyment not for your financial gain. You were always willing to share your knowledge, your time and your creations.

I remember all the times "we girls" (and you always considered yourself one of the girls) would go shopping. You didn't like to shop and hated to try on clothes but you always went because it meant spending time with us.

You always enjoyed visiting your friends, as did we. Often you would say "it has been awhile since I've seen…." and you would name the person. That was great when we knew where they lived but often we'd start out on our journey and I'd ask, "Mama do you know where they live?" and you'd say, "No, but we can ask somebody." And we would.

I remember the times that you and I visited with our friends at the nursing home. They looked forward to your wonderful, secret recipe cornbread! And they so loved visiting with you. And I remember the chicken sandwiches you bought for your little dog, Cessie, on our way home.

Mama, I could go on remembering all day. Anna, Carolyn and I had a childhood filled with love, laughter and a few tears. We may not have had much money, but you and Daddy gave us the more important things in life. You taught us to care for each other, to be a true friend, to be a caring person, to help when we could, to love and care for animals, to enjoy learning, to appreciate the value of a good education, to be honest, to be truthful, and to make the best with what we have.

I have seen you perform miracles -- you were able to create good meals out of basic ingredients; you were able to make beautiful dresses out of feedsacks; you were able to create all kinds of things out of practically nothing (I remember the igloo you made for my class out of paper mache and the top of a toy silo), and you managed to raise three lovely (if I do say so myself) daughters! You were never too busy or too tired for us. I will never forget as a small child, calling for you in the middle of the night and you'd always come. What a wonderful feeling it was to know that you were there to take care of us. I am grateful for all the things you've done for us. I look back and realize how lucky we were to be born to you and Daddy. We could not have chosen two better parents. The older I got the more precious you became to me. You were a quiet, gentle, loving, caring person with a creative mind and busy hands. I admired you and I do wish I could have been more like you. You were an inspiration to me. Mama, thank you for all you've done for us. We love you and will always treasure your memory in our hearts.

ANNIE LEE BRYSON: GUIDING SPIRIT

2011-09-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

Memories, Part One, by Norma Medford Clayton

Presented at Annie Lee Bryson's funeral last September.

Norma Medford Clayton, or Norma Bryson as I knew her when she was my student during my first year of teaching English at Western Carolina University, composed a memorable tribute to her mother Annie Lee, which she read at her mother's funeral. Norma's words brought Annie Lee back to life for all of us assembled there. As one of Norma's teachers, I could claim some small credit, or so I like to think, for this beautifully constructed essay.The credit, however, is all Norma's. And Annie Lee's. I am grateful to Norma for allowing me to feature it on this blog.

All of my memories of you are about love for family and friends, love for the Lord, love for crafts, love for tradition, love for animals, and love for learning. Your love for us was evident in all that you did. The values and morals that you and Daddy taught us have stayed with us through the years. Daddy did hard work on his job and he also worked hard when he got home - chopping wood and making a garden. He was always content if he knew the light bill was paid, we had food to eat, and he had food for his dogs. That left the rest up to you - you saw that the bills were paid, money was saved for our education and future, food was raised, preserved and cooked, our clothes were made, washed and ironed, quilts were quilted, and that we girls stayed out of trouble. What a job!

I can remember how you used to milk morning and night in all kinds of weather. I remember the pan you used to milk in and how the handle was warped from all the years you held it. I can also remember you saying that being swished in the face with a cow's tail was the reason you had such beautiful, soft, unwrinkled skin. The times you allowed us girls to go to the barn with you were a treat. I can still smell the hay, the warm milk, and the pungent smell of cow manure. I can also hear the sound of the milk as it hit the pan. In my mind's eye I still see the "nests" of kittens in the barn loft; the feed room with all its barrels, buckets, and mice; Boyah, Dolly, and Dottie Sue in their stalls, and you patiently feeding and milking.

You instilled in us the love of animals. You patiently nursed orphaned rabbits, skunks, and flying squirrels. Your steadfast care and gentle nature saved many little lives. You helped take care of our numerous dogs and cats. Each one was named and loved. And when they died, they joined their family and friends in the pet cemetery. You taught us that all life, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, was important.

I can remember the suppers you fixed -- fried potatoes and gravy; killed lettuce and onions and new potatoes; hot potato soup; or pinto beans, which Ricky Blackburn called "chocolate beans," and cornbread. These meals were always accompanied by homemade butter and buttermilk, or sweet milk fresh from our cows.

That brings up another memory - the times you let us churn. You would fill a gallon jar full of milk and we'd rock and sing "Come butter, come," and shake the jar until the "butter came." We'd feel so important that we had made butter! And it sure did taste good.

Mama, I remember the potatoes you would slice thin and fry on top of the wood cook stove in the old house. They'd be almost burned on the outside and almost raw on the inside, but when they were sprinkled with salt they tasted wonderful. I remember how you used to make pickles for your potato salad. Those homemade pickles gave the potato salad the best flavor.

I remember the quilts you used to put up on the quilting frame in the living room and I remember how patient you were with each of us as you'd show us how to quilt. But I'm afraid our stitches weren’t small and even. Some of your friends would ask if you were going to remove the stitches and you'd tell them no. The stitches didn't matter - you were passing down a tradition to us. And of course we liked to hide beneath the quilting frame - it made a wonderful tent!

I remember Christmas at our house. I remember the cedar tree that Daddy always cut. It would scratch us as we hung the decorations on it, but boy, did it ever smell good! I can still see the wreath with the bell that always hung on the front door and the chain of glass beads that went on the tree. I can remember your shopping trips to Bower's Department Store on Christmas Eve. You always waited until the toys were marked down so we could get a little extra. I can remember the years when we didn't have that much and you'd wash our dolls and dress them in new clothes you had made and put them under the tree. I can remember the year that Santa knocked the clock down from the mantle and we found his whiskers nearby. I can also remember the year that I got a ballerina doll -- I was so excited! And later on I remember the homemade aprons and store-bought socks we would take around to our aunts and uncles (remember Uncle Lee and the red socks?) and to other people. Those were wonderful Christmases!

ANNIE LEE POTTS BRYSON

2011-09-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

When I think of guiding spirits, I see Annie Lee and her sister

Willa Mae in the back seat of the car in which we were riding to

Asheville where we were to lead workshops in corn-shuck doll-making,

lap quilting, and poetry writing, under the auspices

of the WCU Extension Department, now called, or so I believe,

Distance Learning. We'd never laid eyes on each other before,

and I think we were all three a bit amused and amazed that

we were going to be teaching our crafts at the Asheville Mall!

We were not your typical mall-goers, believe me. Who would

have ever thought that somewhere over the rows and rows of fancy

stores we rarely ever entered, there were classrooms where people

could learn about mountain crafts and poetry writing?

Over the weeks that we journeyed to Asheville from Cullowhee, we shared our stories, stitching them into

a tapestry we took back home with us. We became friends, but more than that, I like to think we

became soul-sisters, so that no matter how long might go without seeing each other, we never had

to try to re-acquaint ourselves with each other. We made a connection that lasted through time.

One of my favorite bluegrass songs by Bill Monroe is called, "The Walls of Time." He sings of being

able to hear his gone sweetheart through those walls. I can hear Annie Lee and Willa Mae, too,

through those walls that on some days seem as sheer as gauze curtains, especially this time of

year when the leaves are barely hanging on and the light calls to us to look up and beyond our daily tasks.

I could say that Annie Lee left us last September 6, but I don't think of her as gone,
because I know she is not gone from my life nor the lives of her daughters and those who loved her.

The greatest honor I can claim to this day is being asked to read at her funeral a poem I'd written
for her 80th birthday. Her daughter Norma Medford Clayton asked me to helped them
celebrate the day with a poem, and so I cast back to my memory of our drives to Asheville.

A BIRTHDAY POEM FOR ANNIE LEE'S 80TH

Annie Lee, I still remember you

and Willa Mae as being like two birds chirping

in the back seat as we drove to Asheville

and our classes at the Mall. Your stories

kept me listening through the stops

and stalls of traffic. Christmas oranges

and summer dabblings in the creek,

the litany of family names that you recited

every trip. Your talk of cornshuck dolls and quilts

fell on my ears like some

endangered speech our daughters'

daughters might not ever know, the turn

and pull of thread that snaps too easily,

if we're not careful. But your thread's

still going strong, it's made a life--

each year a perfect round

of stitches, eighty now, a shining wreath

of days that we all come to gather round and

celebrate: Happy Birthday, Annie Lee!

This poem became part of the Memory book that Norma and
her sisters Carolyn and Anna compiled, and when Norma
began to think about her remembrances of her mother before
the funeral, she had to confess that" ..."Mama,
when I started to write down my favorite memory
about you I couldn't narrow it down to just
one…I had so many memories of you that I couldn't choose.
So I wrote down all those that were dear to me.
I was so pleased that you liked it and wanted it
to be read at your funeral. I have revised it since
you are no longer with us but the memories are still the same."

That beautiful litany of memories will cover
several posts over the next few days, to give my visitors
time to savor and celebrate each portion.

GUIDING SPIRITS

2011-09-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

As the year winds down to autumn , I can't think of a better novel to think about than Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies. Ivy Rowe, the young girl who begins this epistolary novel, matures into a woman who lives through love, loss, and many springs that her father taught her how to taste and feel. Ivy inhabits her place with, as one reviewer described it, the avidity of a child. At the end, an old woman facing down the bulldozers, she retains the vitality that has made her life resonate with our own.

This is a short piece I wrote for redroom.com.

---------------------

Granny Younger came to visit me last night. Stepped right out of Lee Smith’s Oral History and sat down for a spell, trying make me listen again to her stories out of the hollers and hills of Lee’s mountains and mine. I lay awake with her in the dark, knowing I couldn’t make her leave. Being a granny-woman, she does what she wants. She knows how to birth a baby, tend a wound, tell if a man is cheating on you, or if he needs a woman. The woman he finds, face lit by wood fire, wild as a gypsy from some old mountain ballad, well, that’s the beginning of the story.

Granny Younger also knows how to stand up to the bulldozers turning our mountains into golf courses.

She didn’t know about bulldozers, of course, back when she was wandering the trails in Smith’s novel. She could prophesy, though, and she could have looked into the next century and seen what was going to happen, seen the mountaintop removal destroying the lifeblood of her hills.

What she did see was “blood on the moon,” as she called it, the start of a family tragedy that haunts, literally, the descendants of one Almarine Cantrell, a young man whose story she has followed since he was a boy. When she finds him as a young man sitting by the creek, in the sally grass, for the first time in her life she fails to see what lies ahead.

I stole that sally grass from Granny Younger. Put it into a poem one cold January morning while I was working on the collection that became Wildwood Flower. Maybe that’s why she was messing with my mind last night, but I don’t think so. I don’t think she ever minded that I took a smidgeon of her story to kickass a stuck poem back into life again. Especially one about an old woman singing through the night to her granddaughter who listens and remembers. No, Granny Younger came to haunt me because I’d forgotten how mountain women ought to fight for what they love and need.

Like Ivy Rowe. She’s the character who begins Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies by writing letters and spends the rest of the novel writing her life onto its pages. After I’d finished my poem, thanks to Granny Younger’s intervention, I sent it to Lee, who was just beginning a new novel.

“We’re writing about the same thing,” she wrote back by return mail, “ only my character doesn’t sing through the night, she writes letters! “

I didn’t get to meet Ivy Rowe till Fair and Tender Ladies was published. There in the front of the novel was my poem “Weep-Willow. “ That’s not the reason why it’s my favorite novel, though. I love the voice of Ivy, love how she writes her way through joy and loss, and into old age where, on her beloved mountain, she stands down the bulldozers coming to force her out of her home.

I love Ivy for loving so hard, despite the long nights, the sad stories, old songs that flit like ghosts through the coves. Granny Younger brought Ivy with her last night, you see. And Ivy curled up on the sally grass in my poem. She rested her eyes on the mountains beyond my house, just as her daddy liked to do in Virginia, the man who eloped with her mother clinging to him on the back of his horse, riding all night through the dark woods with a pine knot flaring. Ivy meant for me to know that I should do the same, to rest and to ride hard. To stand in the road barring entry, if need be, to what threatened what I love.

Two mountain women came together last night to tell me that. Xanax couldn’t make them go away. Finally at three a.m. I got up, walked to the kitchen, found some leftover wine in a bottle. I walked to the door and looked out at the dark. I could hear some drunk frat boy driving his car too fast around the curve below my house. Soon the little frogs down below in the pasture would begin singing. The green shoots would sprout overnight from the naked limbs. I could hear Ivy’s daddy telling me, as he told her in this novel I carry inside me like my own story, to slow down, to taste each season as it comes, to trust the taste it brings, no matter how bitter it might be, as we struggle to live our lives. Spring does push through the sod again and again. But now as September begins to its shift to letting go, letting go, we can find the fire in that, as well.

The lasting fire for me contains those guiding spirits who gather around my kitchen counter--Granny Younger, Lee, Willa Mae Pressley, Annie Lee Bryson, and at the table Emma Bell Miles sketching the humming bird hovering just outside the window. In the days to come I will be letting them speak, watching the leaves on the hardwoods begin loosening bit by bit, spiraling into the earth where a few months from now they will let the first forsythia and wildflowers begin to push through.

BUCK CREEK: JULIA NUNNALLY DUNCAN REMEMBERS

2011-09-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

Remember the swimming hole? I do. We simply called ours "the creek." Do you wanna go to the creek, my mother, or aunt, or grandmother would ask, and we would gather up food, blankets, towels and head to the creek, just off from the Flint River. Lots of sand and minnows. Scummy bottom in which we'd squish our toes. An old diving board on which I stood and stood (there's even a photo of me...) until I climbed down. I never learned how to dive.

Julia Nunnally Duncan remembers her creek and what she learned there. She's offered photographs, too.

I'm happy to share them with you. And if you have your own memories of swimming holes and creeks, send them to me.

Buck Creek

My father taught me to dog paddle in Buck Creek,

in the mountain stream’s deep pool

where generations of children had swum.

There a concrete slab—

a broken piece of a long-gone bridge—

was embedded in the creek bed and jutted out

just above the water’s surface.

Algae-slick and a trick to climb upon,

this slab served as a diving board

from which we jumped into the tepid, fishy water.

I recall my tenth summer in ‘66

when my father hauled the neighborhood kids and me

in his Chevrolet truck

to our favorite swimming hole.

We sang “Li’l Red Riding Hood,”

howling as loud as we could from the bumpy truck bed

into the quiet neighborhood we passed through.

Once we arrived at Buck Creek,

my father trod downstream,

a bar of Zest soap in his hand.

Standing in his bathing trunks,

he lathered himself

while we frolicked like Flipper,

no fear of snakes or mud turtles

shadowing our pleasure.

Only a baptism might impede us;

if we saw people dressed in Sunday clothes

gathering at the water’s edge,

we waited unseen on the steep bank,

hushed by my father,

whose own father had baptized believers

in a Tennessee river.

We peered through trees to see

something we’d all experienced already

in our church’s baptismal pool.

Soon as that ritual was past,

we ran down the bank and jumped

into the sanctified water—

more like pagans ourselves—

laughing, splashing, and squirting Crazy Foam

on each other’s heads.

Julia Nunnally Duncan enjoys writing about her 1960's childhood in McDowell County, NC, which was predominantly a textile and agricultural area at that time. Her parents were hosiery mill workers, and her family lived in a close knit neighborhood where folks raised gardens, kept livestock, and watched over each other's children.

Julia still lives in McDowell County with her husband Steve and daughter Annie. Her latest book is a rerelease of her 2006 novel Drops of the Night (March Street Press, 2011).

SINGING THE MOUNTAINS

2011-09-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

Like Charles Frazier's Inman in Cold Mountain, I believe that repeating the names of loved places can fend off terror and grief. This week, I need such names to comfort me, as we all do at times of loss. Nancy Dilllingham's lovely poem sings the mountains back to me and breathes spirit into the places we love. If ever we doubt the power of poetry, we should go to Nancy's poems. As guest blogger today, she brings an authentic music of place to the history and culture of the southern mountains. And how resonant the conclusion, the names sounding away into the distance!

Epos

Once you dip your toe in Big Ivy, you never want to leave.
--Legend

Absalom
eloped with his fifteen-year-old sweetheart
swam the Swannanoa
with his bride-to-be on his back
bought the first Big Ivy tract

built a home
in the mountain valley
out of hand-hewn logs
a chimney of native stone
and a hearthstone of flint

planted an apple orchard
a grape arbor
and a garden
part vegetable
part old-fashioned flower

and stinging nettles
around his natural spring

It stood for one hundred years
Its razing marked the end of an era

Big Ivy
named for mountain laurel
or ivy that grew
along its banks

Big Ivy
Big Creek
Haw Branch
Sugar Creek

There is a landscape
of the heart
that sets us apart
the spill and dark sparkle
of water
that runs deep
cuts to the core
through six generations and more

There is a landscape
of the heart
that sets us apart

the Corner Rock
the Snake Den
the Coleman Boundary

the Pinnacle
Balsam Gap
Mount Mitchell
Craggy

VIGILS

2011-09-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

After days of keeping vigil at my father-in-law's bedside, today we are keeping vigil by the television, watching the doppler graphs as rain moves closer and closer. During our absence, our garden burned to a crisp. We came home to morning glory vines shriveled as if thely'd been zapped by frost.

Because we live well above Cullowhee Creek and the Tuckasegee river , we are in no danger of being swept away by floods! But we have been cut off from the main road by floods in years past.

This may be a day for napping to the sound of rain. Or doing some baking in the kitchen, if we don't lose power. The dogs seem happy about spending the day inside. Forget about dog fur on carpet and sofas. For today we'll have to live with it.

Maybe a good day to be grateful for the few jars of pickles and tomatoes I was able to put aside before family issues demanded my attention.

I hope to come back to my Mountain Woman's kitchen soon, with some guests who give voice to the place where we live.

Guest Blogger: ELIJAH MORGAN

2011-08-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Today's guest blogger is Elijah Morgan, son of Sara and "Tater" Morgan.

Elijah was in kindergarten at Cullowhee Valley School when he wrote this poem for

 the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest 75th Anniversary Celebration in June.

His mother has many photos of him, and after taking a look at a few of these,

you'll see why.

The Tree Seed of Love



The trees grow by seeds

They drink by root



They are ALIVE

They enjoy the sun



They are nature

They love it and they like rain



They drink by root

Sunbeams make them grow



That is the tree seed of love










The Southern Appalachians are often called "the vegetation
cradle of North America."  I like thinking of
these mountains as a cradle of life.  They hold so 
many different species of trees that I love simply 
saying the names of them over and over.  Scarlet Oak. 
Sassafras.  Tulip Tree.  Hemlock........  


Too many of our trees are disappearing, though, victims of 
pollution and insects that feed on the weakened trees. Young Elijah has already learned an important lesson about
protecting our natural treasures.  Through "the tree seed 
of love," we can find the heart and energy to take care of the world around us.

GUEST BLOGGER: SARAH KUCHARSKI

2011-08-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

Sarah Kucharski

Glenda Kucharski

First guest blogger is Sarah Kucharski, who grew up here in our mountains, attending Smoky Mountain High School. Sarah is, despite her last name, a born and raised Southerner. Her writing has earned awards from the South and North Carolina Press Associations, as well as the National Newspaper Association. In her spare time she is pursuing a master’s of liberal arts degree. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and is completing her master’s at UNC-Greensboro. You can find more about Sarah at her own blog.
Recently she has translated her skills to the teaching profession. Her work as a remedial English instructor aims to enable students to communicate effectively and inspire them to pick up a book by choice on occasion. Kucharski lives in Canton, North Carolina with her husband, Travis, three cats — Atlas, Nelson and Penelope — and hound dog, Bruce.
Sarah's poem took me right back to my childhood place in the kitchen, peach juice running down my chin, summer ripe as the peach in my hand. This poem, by the way, is for her mother, pictured above.

peaches

standing over the kitchen sink,
knife gently held in my right hand,
summer ripe peach in my left,
I score the fruit through its middle,
blade slicing along the cleft
through sweet flesh down to the rough pit.
halves separate and stone removes,
sticky palm cradles quarters cut
towards my thumb, pushing against steel,
skinning the prize brought to my lips
taken from between edge and thumb
in assured and fluid motion.
I think mostly of my mother
her hands taught me, her mother hers,
this movement born of hearth cooking,
potatoes, tomatoes, onions
sliced straight into heavy stock pots
heated by wood or coal stoves.
we talk not of food but through it,
beef stew and potato pancakes,
sliced strawberries, little green peas,
nourishing love with nourishment
our kitchens are never lonely
for we will never be alone
standing over the kitchen sink eating peaches.

GETTING TO KNOW THE WOODS

2011-08-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

The following account is from the book, Stories in the Land, which you can download by going to the Resources page at the top of this post. The teachers who took their students to the woods had arranged for older 9th graders to lead the first graders through this experience. Here's their introduction:

When we took our students to Peddie Woods and to its

surrounding lake,we saw awe in the

eyes of the first graders. Our students were showing them

ducks, fiddleheads, lily pads, red maple trees, and crab-apple

blossoms.They pointed out poison ivy and explained its dan-

gers.They swung from Virginia creeper vines and made leaf

rubbings of oak, maple, and birch trees. With the use of home-

made puzzle pieces, they learned about food webs and the

interdependence of living organisms.We were amazed by all

that our students taught their younger buddies. Everyone was

engaged and extremely excited about sharing the natural

world. We were rendered speechless. As the day progressed,we

watched our students embody the meaning of stewardship.

They had instilled the wonder of the landscape they had come

to know so well into the minds of these first graders.

Here is a response from one first-grader after this experience.

I have never been alone in the woods with my

friends able to do whatever I want....You cannot

know this feeling until you have seen the vast

acres of pine. When I looked to the ground,I did

not see trash, instead I sawpine needles and

maple leaves covering the rich soil. Even though

the leaves were dead, I could still see a spark of

life in them, a spark that cannot be found in a

city or a town, but only in a forest. It was the

effects of the silence, the way you could see tree

after tree, it seemed as if the scenery would never

end. All I could smell was the pine and no pollu-

tion. Now, I don’t just think of the outdoors as

bugs and mud, I think of the beauty and the

freedom of the landscape.

(early morning hike in late March, Great Smoky Mountains)

If more and more teachers and parents took their children to the woods to see, smell, touch, and hear the life there, we could look to the future knowing that the places we--and they--love will be in good hands.

*************************

PS, here's one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver

© Mary Oliver

OUR OWN WILD LIVES

2011-08-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

"We need to find a way to imagine the lives of animals, of all nature, not in a purely romantic or purely scientific way, but in ways where they intermingle with our own wild lives." (David Gessner)

But, what's happened to our own wild lives? Are they hiding out somewhere in the shadows, in the bushes, stamped down into the leaf mold where they wait for us, mewing or floating wolf-cubbish howls into our dreams and nightmares? Waiting for us to shut down the laptop? Waiting for the moments when we look around and wonder where we've been all these years? As if we've been asleep at the wheel or in the kitchen preparing supper on automatic pilot. Waiting for the computer to load, waiting, waiting.

How long will that wolf cub have to wait?

Go outside, I tell myself. Just sit. Listen to that bird singing, "pretty, pretty, pretty." Watch the clouds swell like yeasty bread dough. You don't have to pack up and go hiking the Appalachian Trail (though that would be pretty illuminating and enriching, if not exhausting). What was the life of that mole like, the one my dog snatched from the blackberry bushes? I held the small velvet body for a long time, but it soon grew cold. I stroked its fur. So soft. Beautiful, really. Strange little creature, why is it here at all?
What does nuzzling through the soil feel like? Taste like?

That jade lizard that darts out from behind the stones of my backdoor ledge, what's his take on things? Pissed off, probably, that I disturbed him yet again, watering my morning glories. Clanging around with my watering cans. He would make a gorgeous bracelet or necklace. I could wear him to Ingle's this afternoon when I gather up more groceries.

Our days go by so fast. We're infected with timesickness.

Stop the clock. Leave the house, the car, the classroom. Just go......

Let me know what you see.

MARY RICKETSON: SINGING THE POETRY OF PLACE

2011-08-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

Few poems speak to our love of place and the way it can enrich and enlarge our spirits as well as Mary Ricketson's Lost in the Roar of Big Santeetlah. When we fall in love with a place, as Mary reveals in this poem, we want to carry that love with us, giving it away generously to the world at large. This is how we will save our places from degradation, this is the legacy we will leave to our children.

Mary's poem recently won the poetry contest sponsored by the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, itself a legacy of what remains of the old growth forests that once flourished in our mountains. Only a few stands remain now. Big Santeetlah Creek runs through this beloved landscape. Mary's poem is a fine and appropriate way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Kilmer Memorial Forest.

Mary lives in Murphy and has been an active member of the Writers Network West for years. She published a chapbook, I Hear the River Call My Name, with Finishing Line Press in 2008, which I featured on my North Carolina Laureate's Writers & Books site. You will find out more about Mary there.

Lost in the Roar of Big Santeetlah

I cross a wooden bridge.

A stand of dark red trillium

waits for my attention.

White violets and crested dwarf iris

sit quietly at trail’s edge. Birdsong begins.

Butterflies dance. Jack in the Pulpit presides.

River birch, pine and poplar stand tall.

Rippling water stills my thoughts.

I can taste the wind.

Soon pink lady slipper will bloom,

then purple rhododendron.

I know every season at this forest.

I fell in love here long ago,

found comfort on this path,

met parts of me I did not know,

told secrets never spoken.

Trees made promises

then asked for mine.

I fill myself with peace and hope when I am here

then give it all away when I am gone.

MOON-ROUSED

2011-08-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Walking to my car outside City Lights Bookstore a few nights ago, I glimpsed through the hillside branches a half-moon, bright as a wafer. Or a rice cracker. Begging to be grabbed and nibbled. Or gobbled. The full moon can stir up appetites that lie dormant, just waiting to be roused from slumber.

The natural world always throbs more audibly when there's a moon in the sky. Maybe the moon is night's heartbeat?

The moon is magical, especially when it floats on the surface of ponds or water pails. Imagine washing your hair in moonwater. Years ago I imagined a mountain woman doing just that. Hearing the hounds baying. Her own heart beating. Something wild stirring inside her.

Caught in my basin, the moon
shimmies. She must feel low
down tonight, floating there
like some big-city show

girl’s silk underwear,
daring me stir up her lather
and scrub till I’m crazy
with moon shine, the better

to see my way clear

through the thick of my mama’s

keep, thirsty for what makes

my teeth ache. This summer

I’ve nothing to dream on but dirt

roads, my mouth full

of singing that swells like the creek

jumping bank at the pull

of the honky-tonk season.

I’m game to go prowling

the backwoods with every bitch

loosed for a dozen miles, howling

at first sight of Her rising

over the pine scrub of Hell’s

Thicket, where in the last

eyes of wolf I hear tell

of, she still

burns, closing in for the kill.

from Black Shawl.

SUMMER EVENING

2011-08-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

This scene reminds me more of summer evenings in South Georgia, where I grew up, but here in the mountains we linger on our porches as long as we can, the dark surrounding us, kept at bay by our stories and music. Our memories.

MAGPIE TALES , Edward Hopper, 1947

Three years after I was born

this couple leans against the porch railing,

brought to life by the artist

who must have known how the air settled

around them and stirred again,

how behind the door, the canvas,

the paint, and the vision,

a window fan sings like the universe

stitching together its matter and anti-matter,

man and woman,

day and night,

a summer evening in which the

moment stands hushed,

like the woman to whom the man's face

turns, as if he is almost

about to speak. Silence hangs

heavy as heat almost about

to break.

August in the Mountains: Late Bloomers

2011-08-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Late bloomers struggling for a last glimpse of sun, my zinnias make do with not quite enough sunlight and not quite enough space at the edge of the garden. Our lush spring greens --mustard, lettuce, collards, chard--are long gone, and I haven't yet seeded my fall garden. This time of year leaves me looking at bare garden soil and tomato plants that have once again disappointed us. But the cucumbers are coming on strong. Pickles! Oh yes.....

Hearts a'Busting open their seedfire, their audacity giving me hope for busting out of my own late summer lethargy.

A lone butterfly clinging to ironweed makes an apt metaphor when I feel time, and summer, slipping away. Hang on, golden wings! Soon you will turn into golden leaf hanging onto the branches atop our ridge, then lingering awhile in flight before settling like golden and russet wings to the leafmeal below.

Time's arch, a swish of leaves presaging fall, makes me stop to catch one nano-second of late summer light with a shutter click.

Ironweed, I love you more than Joe Pye Weed, though both of you stand tall against the coming autumnal transformations, determined to come back again when the timing's right, late bloomers

who never give up, sturdy homesteaders staking your claim to the places you've sunk your roots into,

your stubborn roots. May my roots hold fast, as stubborn as yours.

Dark Turn of Mind

2011-08-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Turn around and there outside, through the window just over your kitchen sink, you see the sky turning dark, the trees stark against it like bony fingers. Your mind turns and turns, from one dark place to another. The candles gutter out. No moon. Swallowed up in the dark window, your dark turn of mind.

What do you do now? What pulls you back from the edge, gets you through the night, through that dark turn of mind that always leads to a dead end?

You finger the fraying edge of a quilt, the one passed down and down, the one with a name like Winding Way or Carolina Lily. Or maybe you walk out to the porch if it's summer and fondle the morning glory vines climbing up the trellis. They keep reaching with their pretty blooms, these flowers, these quilts, these dried sprigs of lavender a friend gave you. That little touch of lace at the hem of your nightgown. That little ribbon of song you sing.

Your pretties. You hold them fast against theft. You hoard them against dark hairpin turns. Switchbacks
that scatter a woman's thoughts if taken too fast.

Your own thoughts. You gather them up for safekeeping.

You keep them warm against your breast, like the bird lying dazed on the grass beneath your window. You cradled it a long time until you felt the wings stir. You opened your hands. There it sat, gathering itself, getting ready. And then it flew ...

HOW TO COOL DOWN ON A HOT AUGUST AFTERNOON

2011-08-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

The summers are getting hotter here in the mountains. That's no surprise. Call it what you will, global warming or climate change, something is going on with our weather patterns, so we'd better get ready to survive whatever those changes bring.

Let's start with an easy recipe for peach sherbet! No grand political and environmental solutions this afternoon. Just a cool way to get through the midday heat.

Doesn't that look delectably cool and elegant? I added a sprig of basil from the pot I keep outside my kitchen.

Here's the recipe, with some creative suggestions. It's a lot like the ice cream, or "junket," that my grandmother and mother used to make before we turned to the ice cream churn.

Two cups peeled, sliced or chopped peaches. (Sometimes I add leftover strawberries, even cantaloupe to this. Or whatever leftover fruit needs to be used.)

Half a cup of sugar

8 ounce carton of plain yogurt. I've been using Greek yogurt mostly, but one day I found only Light and Lively strawberry/banana in the fridge and added that.

Couple of tablespoons of orange juice. ( I've also added cranberry juice. )

Put ingredients in food processor or blender and process till smooth.

If you can keep from drinking the delicious mix down to the dregs, pour it into an 8 by 8 in. pan --or whatever you have handy--and place in the freezer for 5 to 8 hours.

Just make sure it's nice and frozen. Once it is, break it into inch-size chunks and dump into the food processor. After a couple of minutes in the processor, or whenever it's turned into the most fabulous looking soft sherbet you''ve ever seen, wait--don't eat it yet. Pour it into a container with lid and return it to the freezer for 3-5 hours. If you can wait that long.

Serve in a crystal dish with the garnish of your choice.

There all sorts of other variations you can try. Let me know how they work out! Enjoy!

THE LAST BUTTERNUT OF SUMMER

2011-07-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

I took voice lessons when I was in high school, but now the only song I remember singing was "The Last Rose of Summer," just too, too sad for a mid-summer day. I'd rather sing about butternut squash, particularly the last one left from last summer. We had squash vines spreading all over our garden, and we must have harvested close to thirty of these long-lasting delectable squashes.

Well, it took us quite a while for just the two of us to consume them all. There the last one sat on my counter yesterday morning, after I discovered it fallen over behind some of the clutter in my pantry. Late morning. Lunchtime approaching. So I decided to make Curried Butternut Squash Soup. Sure, I had a recipe, but I hardly ever follow any recipe completely.

I microwaved the squash, (if I'd had more time I would have roasted it, and slathered with olive oil), peeled it and scooped it into the food processor along with the chicken broth from my Sunday Chicken and some sauteed onion. I also added some fat-free half and half, along with curry powder to taste. I knew I would add more before serving, hot Madras curry.

Into a saucepan went the puree, with a couple of tablespoons of sour cream added. And some good Greek yogurt.

I garnished the bowls of soup with drizzles of sour cream and chopped cilantro.

The recipe I based this on says this soup is a good source of Vitamin A, which I'm sure is true, but it's also a good source of lunchtime pleasure as well. No tears over the last rose of summer. Just mid-summer hopes that this year's squash plants produce at least half of last year's harvest.

Here's the recipe.

Two teaspoons olive oil to saute the onion, and if you have some on hand, celery.

One half cup diced onion. Also celery. Use your judgment as to how much.

1 Tb. Madras curry or to taste.

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 butternut squash. Options: microwaved or peeled & chopped into cubes, roasted, or boiled along with the sauteed onion and curry for about 15 minutes or till tender.

One half to one cup of half & half.

Puree in food processor.

Re-heat on stove, adding a couple of teaspoons sour cream and Greek yogurt.

Garnish with sour cream, cilantro, or chives, or green onions or....whatever you desire, as long as it's green and tasty!

The Best Breed of Dog in Our Mountains

2011-07-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

We are good friends of the Animal Relief Fund here in our mountain county, ARF as we call it. All our dogs have been "ARF Dogs," a special breed of animal, often rescued at the last minute from a shelter or found wandering on our rural roads, starving, sometimes abused, as was our Byron. Found roaming along Caney Fork road, he ended up at ARF adoption day one Saturday where our daughter saw him and fell in love. She knew his name from the moment she saw him. Still, we were reluctant to take him home with us. We already had three dogs. What would my husband say? We left without Byron, but he haunted us all week long, so next Saturday we went back to the ARF tent outside Ingles, fully expecting that Byron would not be there.

But he was! Sitting on a chaise lounge, like a little prince. A lord. Lord Byron. My daughter grabbed him just in the nick of time. A woman was walking toward him, pointing, getting ready to claim him.

But now he was ours. And for ten years he amused us, exasperated us, pranced around the property as if he owned it.

Now he rests beside the garden that he liked to poke around in, not far from the raspberry bushes he enjoyed. Ripe raspberries on low branches never failed to entice him. He would pick those to enjoy while my husband picked the ones too high for a small 16 pound dog to reach.

My daughter's dog, Arjun, rests beside Byron, although they didn't get along terribly well. Arjun was rescued from a hellhole of 40 dogs kept for years in wooden crates and cages. The man responsible for this prison was a hoarder, as the vet. described him. We've had similar instances of this sort of hoarding in our mountains. Arjun was one of only 3 dogs who could be saved, the others being so misused and anti-social that they couldn't be adopted. A luminous spirit, he lived among us for nine years.

   We still have three dogs. The two above, taking their ease in the sun, are Ace of Dogs and Bro. Ace was saved from the Haywood County Shelter a few hours before he was to be euthanized. I raised Bro from a pup, along with his sibling Sistah.

Pooja, above, looked like a little furry bear when I adopted her at 8 weeks. She has grown into an interesting looking dog. We like to think she has coyote in her. Her coat looks undomesticated! She often acts undomesticated, too!
   Too many dogs and cats are left to wander our roads, unspayed & un-neutered. They are abused and abandoned. We must begin to take better care of our animals, and joining our local Humane Societies is the responsible action to take, along with adopting homeless animals. We wouldn't have any other breed of dog than ARF.
   Now that Byron has left us, we may get another one. But don't tell my husband!

FOURTH OF JULY: BEFORE THE FIREWORKS

2011-07-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

I was awakened around midnight by early fireworks from the house below. They sounded like bombs, which set me thinking about patriotism in its worst forms, its attitudes, actions, and even its bumper stickers. But more about that later.

I love the principles upon which this country was founded, even though I know that large groups of people were left out of the frounders' vision--Native Americans and African slaves chief among them. We have widened the hoop of our democratic vision to include them, though the racism that tainted our past still haunts us. And Native Americans still remain by and large invisible in our culture.

I love the vast landscape of this magnificent country. Seeing some of it from the air has intensified that awe, that love of place that we all should cherish. Below, I watched Mount Hood and Mount Adams rise up out of the clouds as I flew toward Portland, Oregon two years ago.

I love the cities where people can come together and share their culture, their art, their music, and I particularly love San Francisco, with its legacy of tolerance and dissent.

I especially love the world famous Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista bar and restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf!

And I love the religious freedom that we enjoy in this country. Freedom of Religion, or no religion, is hardwired into our American way of life. Here, a group of Indian/Muslim -Americans celebrate being citizens and singing about their patriotism, not their "terrorism." They were dancing to Bollywood music! Long live Freedom of Speech and Assembly, with some Bollywood and Bluegrass thrown in for good measure!

This beautiful mosque on our walk back to our hotel always impressed me with its elegance.

I love the cultural diversity of our country. Even crowded Chinatown!

Back home now by the Tuckasegee River, looking at the seemingly indestructible coneflowers at the edge of our garden, I let myself brood on what is indestructible in our communities and our nation, realizing how fragile things can be, how what seems to be lasting can suddenly become threatened, and how, in order to earn our patriotism, we must keep working to make sure that our government of, by, and for the people remains vibrant and visionary. That the hoop keeps expanding to allow that vision to become reality.

SUNDAY CHICKEN

2011-07-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

My grandmother raised chickens and turkeys. The former deposited their pyramids of leavings under her house, which rested on brick pedestals. It was an old farm house, surrounded on one side by cornfields, on the other a dirt road and sandy yards. Now that I remember those aromatic pyramids, I'm amazed at their construction! And frightened, too. I used to have nightmares about being trapped under the house!

Her sandy yard was home to grasshoppers and bees who couldn't resist her lantana, petunias, and other assorted flowers. She would go out to the chicken yard, grab a chicken, and well---wring its neck. She was good at it. Then she plucked and singed it, brought it inside to her kitchen counter, and turned it into a fryer, its assorted parts ready to be dipped into seasoned (highly salted and peppered1) flour and fried.

Yesterday I found a bargain at Ingles! Organic hens reduced by nearly 75% so that they could be sold by the 4th of July. I couldn't resist, so I bought two. This morning I got to work quartering, sawing through joints, doing the old-fashioned work that women no longer do, buying their chickens already boned, skinned, turned into portions ready to fry, grill, and bake.

What my grandmother did every single day, I did this morning, as if learning a new skill. A revelation, really, when I think of the time it took. Preparing a chicken would have taken time my grandmother could have spent on facebook or twitter. Or checking email if she lived today! Left over bones and giblets I boiled to make stock.

My poor grandmother. Standing in her kitchen cutting and dredging chicken parts when she could have been surfing the internet!

She made jelly and jam this time of year too, sweating into her pot of plum or mayhaw or blackberry juice. I'm not going to sweat over the plums I bought yesterday. I'm making freezer jam. No stirring and stirring until the syrup spins a thread. We like freezer jam, and as long as we have electricity, I'll keep making it, but what would happen if we no longer had the electrical grid to depend upon? Would I know how to can? I would know, I think, how to put away preserves and jellies, but as much as I love them, how could one survive on jam alone?

I marvel at how much my grandmother knew how to do, how much I once knew how to do but now no longer have the energy or the facility with which to do it. I sit here typing text into a blog whose workings of which I have not the slightest understanding. So much of my world seems beyond me, a technological mystery. My grandmother's world remains that richest of mysteries, one to which I can return in memory, marveling at how the the window light transformed the ancient linoleum, how the door still opens onto ways we can survive and beyond that, live within our means in a landscape in which we are no longer strangers.

MOUNTAIN TIME

2011-07-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

Way Back in Weyahutta

Every yard blooms a fine Rose

of Sharon, mere shadow

of Delphia’s embroidery floss

stitching her way around

all the rough edges.

So began a poem years ago celebrating the "pretties" blooming in the yards of mountain women who lived in the section called Weyahutta, or "Worryhut", just off the Tuckasegee River. The woman mentioned in it, Delphia Potts, has become in my imagination a guiding spirit, one of those "prophetesses" that Emma Bell Miles writes about in her classic book, The Spirit of the Mountains. Her daughters Annie Lee and Willa Mae became two of my dearest friends, and they too are among my guiding spirits. Annie Lee's daughter Norma Bryson sat in my first freshman composition class at Western Carolina University. I will be writing more about this lineage later. All three women were excellent seamstresses; their needles did indeed stitch their way around many rough edges. This website will honor them and their indomitable "spirit of the mountains." Here is an excerpt from my poem "Mountain Time," in which Delphia sets us straight about the work we are called to do, no matter how difficult the circumstances, how crazy the world around us becomes.

From "Mountain Time"

All roads seem to lead

to Millennium, dark roads with drop-offs

we can't plumb. It's time to be brought up short

now with the tale-tellers' Listen: There once lived

a woman named Delphia

who walked through these hills teaching children

to read. She was known as a quilter

whose hand never wearied, a mother

who raised up two daughters to pass on

her words like a strong chain of stitches.

Imagine her sitting among us,

her quick thimble moving along these lines

as if to hear every word striking true

as the stab of her needle through calico.

While prophets discourse about endings,

don't you think she'd tell us the world as we know it

keeps calling us back to beginnings?

This labor to make our words matter

is what any good quilter teaches.

A stitch in time, let's say.

A blind stitch

that clings to the edges

of what's left, the ripped

scraps and remnants, whatever

won't stop taking shape even though the whole

crazy quilt's falling to pieces.

from BLACK SHAWL, LSU Press, 1998