Tuesday, July 19, 2011

the mountains?

Back to the Smokies

I go to the Smokies and I say
“I’m going to the mountains. . .”

this summer we’ve flown over and admired the
Wind River Mountains and the Absaroka,
we’ve explored the edges of the Tetons,
some high slopes in Yellowstone,
and the rolling plateau way up in the Beartooth,
and each was spectacular, and fresh, and glorious,

returning to the Smokies today, I feel their age:
the worn roundness and lush diverse growth,
three wild turkeys are in the yard
instead of the heron and the eagle of the Tetons,

the last 100 miles all hazy,
black thunderheads seem to grow from the highest ridges,
a storm breaks loud and long over us at the cabin
and the stream turns brown
as the higher water stirs its bed,

my nose likes the humidity,
the rest of me sweats,








when I hike high up the mountain
great masses of rose bay rhododendron bloom
to welcome the cooler air
and the holes left above them by dying hemlock,








the battery of the streams has a full charge.

by Henry H. Walker
July 16, ’11

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