a tribute to a centering house

 

The Cabin on the Creek

here on the border of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,

my parents found the way to buy the last land by the creek,

including the easement all the neighbors downhill were not allowed to own,

so our house was built in the middle of the old sled road, next to the creek,

just up from the ford where generations of locals crossed the rocky stream,

for 35 cents an hour, a local man from Wears Valley

built the house with knotty pine paneling, creek stone,

and with a big screened porch close by the dropping stream,

a favorite place for meals, for naps, for reading, for visiting,

for being comfortable while  being within the woods,

rosebay rhododendron, oak, maple,  buckeye, and a magnificent beech tree

just outside where the creek falls fast, and sounds like rain,

the fall enough for a tub mill to have been here to grind corn,

before the Park transmuted this land from feeding the body to feeding the soul,

for over 60 years we have preserved and improved this home

to take care of the body with comfortable beds in comfortable bedrooms,

 full bathrooms, engaging social areas, and a  functional kitchen so well-equipped, 

that anyone with a desire to cook and serve the group has effective tools to do so,

what a gift to all of us is my parents’ vision of a place

where family, friends, and an expanding circle of connections,

can find their way here, afford the stay,

and feed their soul with whatever rock, water, and plant are called to give,

let alone the gift of black bears who love to walk through this corner of nature,

I particularly love June into July when the rhododendron

celebrate in blossom, a garden holding us inside itself,

or when in deep winter the water phase changes into icy sheets,

building from the banks and from the rocks, 

stalagtiting from branches above splashing water,

sometimes snow covers all for a bit,

with the phase change that transforms everything,

my mother and many parents and grandparents,

have loved to sit on the screened porch 

and watch little ones play in the creek,

their connections transformed by place into who inside them

can synchronize with the magic water knows,

what we can rediscover if place and time are right,

in the Trust Mother set up, 

we feel honored to be as stewards

for the best of place, and of ourselves.

by Henry H. Walker

July 28, ‘22