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.
