a long goodby

 

The Big Poplar

maybe 60 years ago, I first visited a magnificent tree,

we called it The Big Poplar,

because it was huge,

over 20 feet around, 6 feet from its uphill base,

broken at its top where winds must have hurt it long ago,

that disability maybe saving it from being logged,

it lived high up a hollow, hard against a protecting cliff,

it was not felled when so many of its great relatives

were turned into cabins, barns, furniture, cash money,

we were introduced to this Big Poplar by Mayfield Carr,

he had grown up in this beautiful, harsh valley,

and now did odd jobs for my mother

and showed me how to coax the rainbow trout out of the creek,

over the years, over the decades,

I have brought friends and students to this magnificent tree,

a remnant of an earlier time

when old growth forests ruled here,

a botanical magnificence within which invading settlers

only saw how to turn tree into money,

so they did, and human life was easier, richer, for a short time,

the corn grown where virgin forest used to be

did its job of feeding the people and animals,

and allowing moonshine to feed peoples' desires, and give income,

our friend, Mayfield, told us of where some of the stills were,

and what he did to monetize what the land could provide,

he was busted for transporting 110 gallons of moonshine

from the Smokies till he got caught in Knoxville,

and had to spend six months in Atlanta's federal prison,

all of this history calls to me as I clamber up the pathless hollow

to where the Big Poplar's corpse still stands, at least I hope it does,

the way up is an effort, no trail,

just a choosing of a way, based on slope, footing,

and what my body can handle,

leaving the paved road, a profusion of may apples greets my feet,

along with a lot of flowering plants,

a huge tree, maybe buckeye, has fallen across the hollow

and complicates my projected steps,

I slowly, surely, make my way up the hollow,

and finally I see the trunk of the Big Poplar,

I make my way to it, a bit of scramble up,

and I dodge the blackberry vines 

that the Poplar's death has enabled to be here,

I touch my old friend,

I take pictures of its endurance,

and remember all the times I have been here

and wondered at how much consciousness 

there could have been in the tree,

I photograph my self in front of my old friend,

and slowly make my way downhill,

through the challenging terrain,

I want to remember,

I want to celebrate,

I want to mourn,

so I write this,

and hope that what is gone

can still be with us, somehow.

by Henry H. Walker

March 30, ‘23