Walisiyi?
names have power,
for the thing, the person, has a reality
that can partly be shaped by what we call it,
we often call our cities a name from our past, from its past,
and we can hear some of the history of its story in its name,
these days many of us seek to escape
from the tyranny of the worst of who we were,
such as Confederate "heroes" attached to military bases,
mountains who honor dead white men
who had nothing to do with the mountain,
men whose lives were questionable,
if not despicable, as to their choices,
there is a singular mountain in East Tennessee
whose physical reality dominates the area around it:
it runs over a mile east-west, stands over a mile high,
the hikes up and down it wonderful for the body and for the soul,
a lodge on top with nurturing food, drink, beds, camaraderie,
promontories of rock at each end where all of those present
can welcome the glory of the new day's sun in the morning,
and celebrate the glory of the day that is passing at dusk,
now it is named Mt. LeConte, a lovely name, very French,
very not chosen to honor the mountain itself,
instead it honors a scientist who probably never even saw it,
I contend that we should call it Walisiyi, what the Cherokee called it,
those Indigenous people who lived near it for far longer than we have,
a perfect name for it is beyond us,
no words I yet know can hold its glory,
its scale, the beauty of its flora, fauna, geology, reality,
the revelations of who we are
that we can find in hikes up and down it,
in sunset and sunrise from its top,
from our feeling eldered by how much it is beyond us,
and also by how much it is so completely with us,
and we with it.
by Henry H. Walker
August 11, ‘25
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