The Hollers

The places that call 

to me in our mountain home 

are the hollers and low flats 

that hold deep beds of peat.  

Often these spaces are 

treed with tall pines – only 

having twenty feet of greenery 

atop an eighty-foot tree.  

The hollers are less crowded 

than the low flats.  Both share 

a variety of needle bedding.  

They are hush.

It is the feel of shapeliness 

or spaciousness protected by 

holler walls and treetop canopy 

that calls out to me the most.  

That, and the usual sound 

of water, as it courses its gurgling 

way along and through these idylls.  

Stillness rises in these places and 

hangs low enough in the air to stay 

cool and breathable and delightful 

all at once.  They induce and imbue 

contemplative rest.  They are still.

They are often connected in their 

aperture and display.  The light 

passing through them - just so - 

to reveal a sense of seclusion.  

If you muddle down the sides of 

a holler and land in the flat lands 

adjacent to the notch, you will 

feel as if you are wending about 

in a glen or a dale that has been 

hit hard with tall trees.  The smell 

of loam and humus rise to meet 

your nose in warm and cold alike.  

They drowse you into a sleepiness 

that just might have been responsible 

for Van Winkles's demise.  

Their lichen and spidery white roots 

crawling through the heaping 

tufts of unearthed peat that have 

given off this aroma of intoxication.

It takes so little for me to find a pad 

of needles and lean myself to sleep 

against the bark and on the loam 

that is at once mine and beyond me.  

These places on the landscape give rise 

to feelings of being at home.  It is 

not unusual to hear the rakish chatter 

of blue jays or the chirping squawks 

of chipmunks as I settle in.  Years ago 

I would have needed some nag-champa 

incense to fill the air with a sense of 

calm release; today I know the dirt 

as all I need to be at one with all I see.