Woodsmoke. Wayne Caldwell

      Pisgah

      1

      I’ve always lived in sight of Pisgah’s crown,

      Ten or twelve crowback miles from Pole Creek,

      The peak a steadfast anchor for my soul.

      Twixt here and there green folds of South Hominy’s

      Story feel like old friends shadowed by the mountain.

      It’s stout, worthy, tall by more’n a mile.

      The rock face halfway up they call the bride and groom,

      Who after deep snow look pleased as punch to marry.

      Two peaks to its left a rat sneaks up the ridge.

      A rub-lamped genie could conjure up no better sight

      To greet an old man’s eyes at one more weary dawn.

      2

      Mister Vanderbilt used to own it. Or at least had a deed,

      As if a mere man, even a tycoon, could own such godly land.

      Built Buck Spring Lodge, where blueblood guests

      Killed deer and bear and buffalo and made their servants

      Cook and serve it. I peeked in there as a young’un,

      You could set a T-model Ford in the fireplace,

      And a bearskin rug looked fit to eat you alive.

      Did I say buffalo? Around here? Well, Papa told it,

      How Mister Vanderbilt ordered half a dozen,

      Male and female, three of each from way out west,

      For he thought money cured all ills, even buffalo drought.

      I was at Hominy station when them things come off the train.

      Big old wooden crates a-snorting and a-grunting and a-growling

      Like something inside itched to kill something outside.

      Us ragtag hooky boys (and our teacher, too) dogged them

      Horse-drawn carts all the way to a pen up Cut-Throat Gap.

      First they let out the buffalo gals, then after they settled down

      Busted out the he-beasts, named after various Southern worthies.

      But if Dan’l Boone and Varina Davis ever shared a

      Lusty look of love, I never heard tell. I reckon

      The train ride or thin air, one, took the rut out of ’em.

      Soon the poor uprooted beasts starved

      Or ran off or just plain petered out.

      Some things even a millionaire can’t fix.

      3

      I was up Pisgah a fair amount, camped around a deadfall fire

      When I could sleep on the ground without being sucked into it.

      No poison oak past midway, clear water cold enough to crack your teeth,

      Air smelled sharp as a falling axe. Red spruce and he-balsam

      Big as smokestacks. You’d see eagles, snakes big around as your arm.

      Papa said there was panthers, but I never heard one.

      Pisgah springs head many a creek full of orange and black spring lizards

      And mouth-melting speckled trout, pure waters that birth

      Davidson River and the East Fork of Pigeon and South Hominy Creek.

      I never have been more taken with a view.

      Over a mile high, spy any direction and ask if Moses

      Seen better when he looked from Gilead all the way to Zoar.

      I kind of doubt it, myself. I like seeing chimney smoke

      From Candlertown and Etowah, Brevard and Waynesville.

      Promised land, for my people. And we got to go in.

      4

      Pisgah’s north side overlooks a valley filled with kinfolk

      Intermingled