Wednesday, December 12, 2012

and I will follow if I can. . .


pulled to the Smokies    

the Smokies call to me
and I follow the bugle of their call
along interstate, to a paved two-lane road, to a gravel way,

the journey itself simple enough
that I listen to science podcasts
to keep my mind engaged,
as I near my target valley for an adventure,
I hear of the great extinctions in North America 11,000 years ago
when many large mammals,
which had thrived in the time of ice, died away:
the mammoths, saber-toothed cats, great sloths, even camels;

two hypotheses for what wiped them away?
climate change and the efficiency of newly-arrived human hunters,
or maybe some combination of the two,
even closer to my adventure, I hear of the shock
that visual documentation gives to the current melting of the ice,
and the upheaval of predictability as change roars at us,

then the moment so engages me that I shut off the podcast,
and lose myself in the elk before me,





they who we hunted away, then reintroduced,
here where humans are not excessive as a factor,
though we help in keeping the trees from suppressing the grass,
here, just by the road, graze two bull elk and three females,
their tagged collars remind me that they’re only a few steps
back into the eco-system’s wholeness,


size does matter:
it’s easier to appreciate the greatness of the elk
with their huge eyes and great antlers
than the small furtive mammals like those even the dinosaurs knew,
I appreciate the dinosaurs’ descendants here, too,
the wild turkeys, who find what they need, and prosper,

as I hike the trail to where some old-growth trees still thrive,
I work to notice and appreciate
whatever gifts of whatever size today offers me,
what stops me most are huge tulip poplar trees
whose spirit pulls me high and deep,



on the way out I pause at a great stone wall,


carefully crafted out of only the rocks themselves,
and I salute the vision, the art, of the makers,
those humans before, who fit the land,
and let the best of themselves express a piece of greatness,



I want to contain multitudes,
and I hope multitudes want to contain me.

by Henry H. Walker
December 5, ’12

1 comment:

Tommy.cfs said...

Awesome, in the full extent of the word.