returning to our Smokies
seasons turn,
for three months we have found ourselves home in the piedmont,
there where we have built a life together
with careers, children, each other,
we have burned wood from our own trees
when the cold of winter got to us,
we have started tomatoes inside early February
and planted them outside mid-March,
despite the fear of frost,
along with lettuce and sugar snap peas,
end of March? potatoes, green beans,
the first summer squash, cucumbers, pumpkins,
the trees around us, once hesitant
are halfway to near full leaf now,
we decide it is time to return to the Smokies,
the home of our heart,
spring here is much more hesitant high up the trees,
but spring here is much more luxuriant on the ground beneath:
phacelia, phlox, white and yellow trillium,
make their "hay" while the sun can get to them,
our souls and bodies now are more of autumn,
anticipating the freeze coming soon,
our hearts are still of the spring,
the ephemeral means even more to us
as we feel the ephemeral in our own bones.
by Henry H. Walker
March 31, ‘26
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