fate in one's own hands?

 over the mountain

260 years ago, or so, great powers conflicted 

here west of the Appalachians,

the Cherokee and the land felt as one,

and Britain supported their claim,

the richness of the land

drew farmers to settle across the mountains,

to carve up potential into homesteads, into farms, into settlements,

wresting the land from the indigenous Cherokee, and their British allies,

justice involved fields of corn, fences, and stockades 

for one’s own community, ownership zero-sum, 

fate in one’s own hands,

that plucky feistiness turned the war for independence from England,

as thousands of men, committed to the settling west of the Appalachians,

crossed the mountains back to the east

and beat the English at King’s Mountain,

opportunity of land to be claimed and developed won the war,

and we are still dealing with the downside 

of claiming one’s own freedoms primary

while neglecting consequences when will becomes one’s god.

by Henry H. Walker

November  25, ‘21