Boone, North Carolina
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 12 No. 3, "Painting South." Find more from that issue here.
Walking along rhododendron ways,
I find the voice of water,
the yellow of violets,
and the warmth of an old stone
like a knee of the Earth Mother
thrust up into April sun.
I see the faces
of my Cherokee friends
in the shape of this soil,
its darkness the same
as their eyes remembering
old tales of removal.
Yet this land
(although his name remains)
was never enough for that pioneer.
I wonder what shape
his spirit now takes
within the bodies
of his many children,
whose eyes always look
beyond the next ridge,
their dreams never
returning to earth.