the "Chimneys"

Duni’skwalgun’i, the forked antler

the twin pinnacles of rock

shout their story now,

the subtlety of the Smokies gone—

that round blurring of line

from thousands of years of forest

weighing down rock’s story

with countless green tales,

now these upper rocks the native people called Duni’skwalgun’i, 

have lost that gentle softening,

because fire smoldered, erupted, and consumed

their green skin, even some of the gray paint of lichen

that works so hard to gentle rock toward life,

the dirt held on their steep slopes

slips away in every rain now,

the gaunt black rocks shock us,

as if angry, brooding, sullen,

the Cherokee knew a truth

that spoke to them of an earlier time

today’s shapes of mountains dimly remember,

these days the fire-ravaged prominences before us

shout of what is underneath the surface,

the surface that can lull us into forgetting. 

by Henry H. Walker
December 18, ‘17