Rocky Knob Cove
My Life in the Mountains of Western North Carolina Told in Poetry
Linda Marie Gifford
Rocky Knob Cove
My Life in the Mountains of Western North Carolina Told in Poetry
Copyright© 2025 Linda Marie Gifford All rights reserved.
ISBN # 979-8-218-71028-6
Library of Congress # 2025912234
Printed in The United States of America
Mountain Lake Publishing, Inc
All photographs by David & Linda M. Gifford
Photo on Back Cover by Brenda K. Ledford
Copyright 2025 by Linda Marie Gifford. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America with Mountain Lake Publishing, Inc. Copyright act of 1978, does not permit this publication to be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means stored or in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author and publisher.
ISBN # 979-8-218-71028-6
Dedication
This collection of my autobiographical poems is dedicated to my mother, Dorothea, who was a better poet than me and without her I wouldn’t have written a single poem. About 1992, she wanted very much to attend a Creative Writing Class at our local college, which focused on poetry. I joined the class with her and wrote my very first poem. She came from a long line of poets. It must be in our blood. One of my favorite poems that my mother wrote was….
Home
Rosalie sits on a wooden chair, gazing out at the Irish Sea. She feels the breeze upon her hair. She says, “Is someone touching me?”
Gazing out at the Irish Sea and thinking of home, far, far away, She says “Is someone touching me?” She thinks “the wind from over the bay”
And thinking of home, far, far away, the Blue Ridge Mountains, U.S.A., she thinks “The wind from over the bay could bring me home. Please do I pray.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, U.S.A. where I can sit on a ridge like this, oh, bring me home, please do, I pray. I will once again know bliss, where I can sit on a ridge like this.” She feels the breeze upon her hair. “I can once again know bliss.” Rosalie sits on a wooden chair.
By Dorothea Spiegel
Nancy Simpson was the teacher of that class and taught many people who became great poets in Western North Carolina, North Georgia and beyond. I drove her to out of town poetry readings. The first trip I saw the Ocoee River and hence wrote Rapids. That started my decades of writing poems.
Nancy Simpson taught The Lyric Poem
It is written about a moment in time. It can be 5 minutes or a day. The reader will know there is a moment of knowing something. It is written with emotion and feeling. It can be 20 lines or a few stanzas with 4 or 5 lines each. It usually does not rhyme at the ends of the lines, but can have internal rhymes and words that sound alike, or alliteration. It has rhythm and sounds good. The senses are included, smell, touch, hearing as well as sight. It can be true or completely made up.
Follow my journey up a mountain path and ending holding hands on our path through the woods
Rocky Knob Cove
Acknowledgements
Dogwood And Kudzu Echoes Across the Blue Ridge
NC Writers Network West Winding Path Press 2010
Log Cabin Get-Together Lights In The Mountains
NC Writers Network West Winding Path Press 2003
Rapids (The Ocoee River) Freeing Jonah V
Pure Heart Press 2007
Docked At Key West Happy Feet
Old Mountain Press 2013
From The Window Seat Red Fox Run
Ridgeline Literary Alliance 2013
Wood Thrush Pantoum When We Were Together
Old Mountain Press 2014
Meditation At The Sink Future Cycle 12 Future Cycle Press 2013
Beginnings Mountain Time
Old Mountain Press 2006
After The Hail Storm Red Fox Run
Ridgeline Literary Alliance 2013
Season’s Gems Freeing Jonah V Pure Heart Press 2007
Giving Red Fox Run Ridgeline Literary Alliance 2013
The Writing Lesson Reading And Writing During The Holidays
Old Mountain Press 2024
Rock Atop A Boulder Mountain Lakes Old Mountain Press 2025
Chapter 1 Hiking, Riding, Cruising and Flying Adventures
My poems in this chapter begin by telling the adventures in my life, after I married Bert, the great looking artist, painter, sort of a hippie, happy-go-lucky guy. Our wedding was on a secluded East Coast Florida beach at sunrise, where we spent many mornings soaking up sun, watching the sea and sky, swimming and running and kissing. We lived in Florida until in 1988, then moved to the North Georgia Mountains. A year later we bought a house, just over the border in Western North Carolina. The people were friendly, honest and knowledgeable about these Southern Appalachian mountain forests and communities, much different than what I’d been used to in Florida. We lived in our little house for thirty-two years.
Moon is rising over Snowbird It’s time to go back home. We drive the dark, black road, with our bellies full, even the moon is smiling. Line from Log-Cabin Get-Together
Dogwood and Kudzu
The first time I saw Dogwood trees.
We awoke to a white land, an unexpected gift to my friend who hadn’t seen snow in years. We took a nature walk up the mountain path.
Are those leaves or flowers? she asked. We saw an opened blossom. Dogwood, I said, though this was my first April here. We saw an ancient cottage, shriveled vines all around.
We talked of what grows there. I love jonquils, tulips and lily of the valley’s tiny bells, never seen in Florida.
Now every summer my garden shines with red Stargazer lilies, reaching toward heaven and magic hydrangeas turn blue then pink.
But when dogwoods first bloom, I remember the path and remember my friend, both as gone as the kudzu encrusted cottage that time and nature swallowed whole.
Riding on Snowbird Mountain
My horse was called Ginger. His was Big Pete. They knew the trail up the mountain and back to the barn. Ginger knew where the yellow jackets were buzzing out of the ground.
I had to act like a cowboy. Dig my heels into her belly. Slap reins on her mane and holler HA to ride past the stinging pests.
We hugged the horse’s necks going up, but coming down, reins loosened, toes pointed, sitting tall and leaning back we were high above the brambles, prickles and rocks.
I said this was not the same as when I rode on flat land in the park, with children begging for a ride. He said he hoped Big Pete wouldn’t step on his foot like Charlie had when he was eight.
Back at the barn, we wished we could ride the trail again and knew with such fun, sometimes there comes fear.
Log Cabin Get-Together
With my Snowbird Mountain friends at the log cabin they built.
Four boar’s heads look down on me, with upturned tusks they smile. Black bear wears a red sombrero. He looks happy too. Ten point buck sports a gray cap with picture of a gun, says I don’t call 911. Bobcat on hind feet paws at Elvis on black velvet.
Dream catchers; blue feathers and beads hang above the counter piled high with ‘gator tail, fried crispy, (the friend from Florida brought) bear meat, biscuits and soup beans, taters, ramps and slaw.
Women talk around the table, pare and cut for apple butter. Randy’s looking for a woman. What happened to Dianne? She left him for another man. And he gave her a car.
Guys around the bonfire tell tall tales and laugh. Fire dims, Getting cool, let’s go in. Guitars come out with mandolin. Fiddles and blues harp play Rocky Top Tennessee.
Moon is rising over Snowbird. It’s time to go back home. We drive the dark, black road, with our bellies full, even the moon is smiling.
Rapids
(My first look at the Ocoee River)
Early spring brings buds up the banks of the Ocoee in Tennessee. Red buds aren’t red, but lavender. Under light gray skies the river’s not blue, not gray, but chartreuse and choppy, crashing against huge rocks with white water splashing.
The great Cherokee carved a path next to the winding river. Now it’s a road, that takes us to raft with thrill explosion of boulder dodging and it took the Olympians to kayak and win the gold.
Docked At Key West
Bert’s and my 25th anniversary trip
A tanned man sits cross-legged on a busy corner, weaving baskets from palm fronds to sell to waves of tourists who have but six hours to see Hemingway and Audubon houses, a museum of sunken treasure, or skin dive in cerulean water.
Some choose to cool off and drink margaritas at Sloppy Joe’s, but we walk on, holding hands like we did twenty-five years ago, and laugh at chickens roaming free on streets with quaint houses and iron gates covered in bougainvillea.
A local lady, sweeping her walk says hi as we pass by. The day’s brightness subdued in an alley, beckons us to a courtyard. A cement bench cools our thighs, while we watch koi swimming in a fountain pond, and wish (though we’d never leave our mountain home), could we return for six days or six weeks? We walk back slowly to board the Fascination, whose schedule won’t allow us to enjoy the sun’s famous disappearance into the sea.
From The Window Seat
Colored Geometrics
Diamond necklaces strewn in circles. Bracelets of topaz and emerald brightened the ground in the black night. We saw rings of all colors, one an arena.
Mom and I flew back in sunlight, watched an onyx line snake for hundreds of miles, light and dark, with specks and glints of gold and silver, living beside its bulges and fingers.
Ridges to the north topped with a brighter white than the cloud puffs around us. Below us swirls of jasper and agate on squares of tans and browns.
Who made the gold and jade crop circles?
Stratus stretched to a long, pink curve. We watched a rainbow ring on the wing move with us, until the heavens surrounding us,
looked like a huge, rainy gray pearl. Far behind ended the colorful West. The sky turned azure as we zoomed into Autumn to greet the peak leaf colors of Atlanta.
Hunting In December
Every year we hunted for the perfect tree. Long needled pine on the highway we sawed down, eleven miles from town. I was the lookout. Bert was the scout. He trimmed up branches, painted over lights, turquoise, violet and green, hung golden bells here and there, just so. He said, Christmas trees are works of art. I know. My sister said, Keep him. He’s a gem. I did.
One year target shooting in the marsh we shot one down. BOOM. Got four more to give away to friends. We had loads of fun on those December hunts starting in Florida’s marsh and piney woods, ending with evergreens on mountainsides. New houses built too near to trees and briars covered paths excused our aching joints from searching anymore.
Some years white lights on a Parlor palm, reflected in mirrors, sufficed. A friend said, Take this little fake tree. Other times we choose to hunt in our yard for perfect pinecones and place them on the mantle with lights of turquoise, purple and green and hang golden bells here and there, just so.
OLD ROUTE 66
Cross Country Trip for our 30th anniversary
Steinbeck called it the Mother Road. Some got their kicks there long ago. We see it in parts off Highway Forty. Our hearts and bodies are warmed, when hot rays kiss cool winds near the ocean in California’s sun.
Tall mountain in Flagstaff is topped with snow from Spring storm. We see it on the drive to The Canyon. Train whistles blow in the distance, in Arizona’s April.
Phillips 66 is named after the Road, where places popped up to help the traveler, now many empty buildings. We try Indian tacos with fry bread, in New Mexico’s sun.
The Big Texan offers seventy-two ounce steaks for free for those who dare to try. We love barbeque in the land of big ranches and freedom loving people, in the Texas sun.
Native Americans live near the Road, Navajo, Zuni, Arapaho, Pueblo. Trading Posts sell authentic crafts. We remember the Cherokee came west on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma’s rain.
Route 66 goes all the way to Chicago. We leave Highway 40 in Memphis and walk up Beale Street hearing the Blues. We travel toward home on Davy Crockett’s Trail. The grass turns emerald green in Tennessee’s Spring.
CHAPTER 2
Pondering and Ruminating
The fun adventures slowed down. I was very busy, going into my middle years, working hard, at work, at home, for Mom and Dad, our flower and vegetable gardens, and church.
In 1992 I joined North Carolina Writers Network West, and learned much from their monthly critique groups, classes and conferences. I became more thoughtful and more spiritual.
I welcome squiggles of lightning, beacons lighting my way. From Beginnings
Wood Thrush Pantoum
My summer bird chirps and tweets, before the cicadas sing, ‘til fireflies sparkle the night, he calls to his mate or to me.
Before the cicadas sing, after spring birds have said goodbye, he calls to his mate or to me, while he hides in tall oaks and pines.
After spring birds have said goodbye while hummers drink their sweets, he hides in tall oaks and pines. I want to see my illusive friend.
While hummers drink their sweets, he hides in tall oaks and pines. I want to see my illusive friend, my summer bird who chirps and tweets.
Feeding the Little Ones
I want to feed my birds, mine because they’re in our yard. My Cardinals, Towhees, Doves and Chickadees politely take turns to munch dried rye and raisin bread.
I hear Robins and Wood-Thrush, as a flash of bright blue lights surefooted amid crumbs of cornbread.
Mr. Blue Jay devours every bit.
Some want to feed the starving world. They send nineteen dollars each month for food and clean water, but they don’t always reach the needy. Mr. Despot steals from his people, keeps them poor.
I want the world fed with Truth, so it will know how to live with love, without hunger, thirst or fear, how to stop the devourers who come in a flash and dictators who deceive and thieve. The world needs to know.
Beginnings
I marvel this first day of Spring at lanky Forsythia perfectly yellow, small puffs of clouds on Bradford Pears, first to bloom.
Felled timber is scattered near new gravel roads up the mountain where wood frames house new hope, new beginnings.
Seventy-five degrees. Too warm, storm is brewing. That evening sheets of rain dance across the dark river road, pushing my wheels. I welcome squiggles of lightning. Beacons lighting my way.
I remember my friend upside down on a culvert, where torrents thrust her car. Shocked out for an instant, her spirit saw her body dangling in the seat-belt. Oh Lord get me home.
Cold winds bluster all night into the day when sunny skies return. Glorious Sunday. Baptism Day. Four obedient souls immersed by the preacher, while incredulous onlookers watch them run out, dripping freezing drops of Lake Chatuge.
Meditations At The Sink
As a young bride, I stood at the sink, in the kitchen with red flowered wallpaper, looked out the window to orange trees in the backyard and had a fleeting feeling. I yearned for something yet to come, even though, we were cheerful, happy. I learned to cook. Bert told me meals were good even when they weren’t. We worked, laughed and loved through the years, but when I stood at the sink, sometimes, and looked out, I recalled a sense of something I wanted, though I didn’t know what, but I was aware that the thing was getting closer. Our houses, kitchens, yards and trees changed over the years until we came to our mountain home.
He brought me coffee in bed every morning and bought me a Buick for my birthday. We worked and took care of our Moms and Dads. Then once when I stood at the sink, in the gold colored kitchen, looked out the window to watch the birds
feeding in the plum tree and remembered the orange trees, the red flowered wallpaper from long ago. I realized the sense of something had turned to self knowledge. I was on the right road.
Independence Day
Bert and I had no plans for fun, to boat, swim or picnic.
Between rain clouds, we drove to the home center to buy a new water heater, look at lights, filters, drill bits. We entered the garden area to find slug bait.
Singing, chirping high above, made us look up to straggly nests between beams on ceiling half made of sky. Birds could fly out and in to feed their young, protected from rain.
Stargazer lilies and Red Caladium found their way to our cart. They would brighten the garden and my mood.
We ate barbeque later on the patio. I thought back to the morning, the choir, dressed in red, white and blue, sang America The Beautiful.
Fireworks boomed in the distance. We lit sparklers and celebrated an independent Independence Day.
Chili Sauce and a Corn Flake Box
Chili sauce fell off the pantry shelf before four in the morning, when Rascal wanted to go out.
The piquant smell forewarned me, all was not as it should be. Jerking puppy away from the gooey mess and broken glass wasn’t easy.
Leaning down, retrieving a shard from his tiny mouth, he bit my hair, then ran to the patch of ivy around the birdbath with August’s moon reflection.
Just a few more nights and he’ll sleep right through and so shall we.
Corn flake box chewed in its corner, left little doubt what had knocked the glass jar off the shelf.
We’d left the back door open, to help Rascal go out on his own, but that let clumsy mice in. Should I buy traps or poison? Oh no, not safe for puppy.
We got Rascal to help us feel young again.
Between The New Year and Lent
Bert and I drag the bins of the nativity, wreaths, ornaments and our big tree, down the rock cellar steps, place them on new sturdy shelves he built after the foundation was fixed.
Now it’s time to put my snowmen, cute ceramic and glass, on the buffet. But their box stays hidden. Bert tells me, They’ll bring more snow. Spring is coming. I use lavender and green silk flowers instead.
Breezy’s in the garden watching birds sing. I hope her old bones will be warmed by her fur in the sun. Daffodils have sprouted. Lenten roses are blooming.
It’s too early for them, I say. Bert says, We won’t get a bad freeze like the year the blossoms turned black. I named it, The year there were no blueberries. There was evil in the air.
I looked again at Lenten roses, lavender and green.
Some folks stop a bad habit during Lent. Others resolve on New Year’s Day something they will do. We will plant new grass, finish projects, the sink vanity of beadboard and Daddy’s stones. Our house and our lives are a work in progress no matter what the season.
Chapter 3
How Weather Affects Us
Storms, rain, snow and beautiful Spring days affect our thoughts, our actions, our mood. Every year there are catastrophic freezings, floods, blizzards, hurricanes somewhere. I think of the weather every day.
Gloomy rain and gray thoughts for days prevail, but at the end, amethyst and topaz rays of sunset sparkle across our yard. Line from Season’s Gems
After The Hail-Storm
I walked in my yard after the hail-storm. Huge Hostas sliced as if with a knife. Boxwood’s tiny leaves turned brown on the ground.
Bombarded with scary news, I dreamed of murders, disguised as suicides, beheadings with swords.
I must sooth my eyes and soul with uplifting poems and stories, so I can dream of those who care and their reward is joy.
Fiftieth Birthday Scene
Folding chairs were placed around outside tables. Flowers and balloons, the décor of the day. Friends brought salads and deviled eggs. Fired-up grill smelled of burgers and Barbecue.
Black clouds moved above our back yard. Be not today, God, I pleaded, pointing upward, but the smell of wrecking rain loomed behind our small house. Would we need
shelter? We were twenty, how could that be? Scent of lilies mixed with heavy air. Skyward, I looked again, to a brightening, slowly, lighter gray with a bit of blue.
The Year There Were No Blueberries
It was as if the weather had no memory of what it was supposed to do, the year there were no blueberries.
Evergreen ivy froze twice in April, stuck to brick columns as if melted. Lavender petals on Princess trees turned black. Worse, blossoms could not turn to fruit, stopped in Spring, Iris bloomed on Halloween.
One hundred degrees, every day in July, no rain for livestock who stood in trickles of creeks to cool their feet. We would’ve welcomed rains from hurricane remnants.
We are shown we need order, a system that’s right, that we count on, or we’re like frozen petals that produce no fruit, like the year there were no blueberries.
Season’s Gems
Drizzly remnants of hurricanes stretch like big beads on a necklace, across the Atlantic, chasing summer away a day early.
I resent autumn’s untimely arrival, robbing itself of its own magnificence. No more floating in Lake Chatuge, face up, absorbing white hot aura, splashing liquid diamonds over my tanned skin and sapphire suit.
I shut windows, don wool socks and fuzzy sweater. Still cold, I curl under my ruby colored throw.
Gloomy rain and gray thoughts for days prevail, but at the end, amethyst and topaz rays of sunset sparkle across our yard, where dogwood’s leaves turned garnet.
Autumn’s glory is here.
Ice and Snow
North facing spaces keep ice and snow in puddles on switchbacks up mountain roads. Those that live there get cabin fever, stuck. When power goes out, fires and candles are lit. Loved books come off their places on shelves, opened with care; nothing to do but read.
But we live in the valley, just a hint of winter causing tires to slide just a bit. Sometimes we wish enough ice and snow would come, for a day or two and we’d be stuck. Loved books could come off their places on shelves and we’d have nothing to do but read.
Chapter 4
Folks I Knew and One Made-Up
The people in my life, Bert, my Mom and Dad, gone now for many years, my sister and others. I never had children. All of the poems in this chapter are real people, except one.
Josie is a fictitious elderly lady, a poor widow. I knew some, rich and poor, who I helped and made a living by cleaning, shopping, gardening for years.
Josie looked around for the lady who drove her home and sometimes to lunch. She was not there and no eyes met hers. She took a moment to admire the stained glass and hobbled home.
Line from Josie’s Sunday
The Lapidary Artist
My father began his craft when I was young, after my sister collected stones. identified them, we became Rockhounds, hunted for gold where there was pyrite to fool us. When I was six I found the real thing.
Daddy started with a grinding wheel, saws, slabs of rocks, shaped cabochons of tiger eye, turquoise, onyx. He learned to cast gold and silver, set exquisite stones in earrings, pendants, belt buckles, bolo ties, rings.
His work bench grew bigger, more machines and tools to facet dazzling gems, garnet, peridot, citrine, sapphires, in shapes of round brilliant, emerald cut, jubilee. For decades he taught classes, helped rock clubs and worked gem shows. The machines became quiet and dusty. I feared the Supreme Master Gem Cutter fashioned his last golden beryl, but on his eighty-fifth birthday, after cake, we picked out a mold, some gold, an opal and made a ring for me.
My Amazing Sister
Take over the controls, the tired pilot told her. So she flew the two-seater part way to Nashville.
You can have the dead deer, the game warden said. She studied her Foxfire book, dressed the buck by nightfall. We need more room in this house, our Mom told her. So she built a bathroom, new floors, new walls.
A wasp stung my face, I’m allergic, I told her. She squished plantain weed onto the sting. No hives, no swelling.
I need a new P. C. to write my poems at home, I said. She bought a kit, built it. It came in the mail for me.
Traveling With Mom
No GPS, Mom read maps, I drove on back-country curvy roads, Tail of The Dragon, Rice Rocket bikes whizzing by us.
Once on a Tennessee highway, bridge out, traffic backed up for miles, seat belts buckled, Hang on, I said, and drove Mom’s old Oldsmobile into the wide median, sloped way down, up the other side. Now we’re traveling north. Look at the map and we’ll find another way home.
We’d shop in Helen’s outlet stores, The Lace Place, The Ribbon Shop, gone now many years. Fill a bag for 5 bucks, have enough for life. We’d look at jewelry, carved bears in touristy spots in mountain towns.
For her seventy-fifth birthday, we ventured to Atlanta, ate at the Irish Pub, with a look of another country and time, hickory branch tables and chairs. then we walked, explored lovely stores. Much safer then.
Neighbor Boy
At six, I took him to Bible School, cried when I was out of his sight.
At eight, he played with our dogs and fed them while we were away.
At ten, I paid him to pick up sticks and pull weeds. He bought me a glass Santa Clause.
At twelve he held hands with a girl in the back pew, He talked of her all the way home.
At thirteen, he sat with us on our patio, We talked of history and philosophy.
At fourteen, he dug holes for our new azaleas, planted and mowed grass, worked until dark.
At fifteen, at the county contest, he won an award for his painting. I won one for a poem.
We chatted, kudos to each other.
When I was a kid, I would have loved a neighbor like me.
The Easter Lily
We’ll leave the tulips, daffodils and most of the rest in my parent’s garden. My friend digs iris for her sunny yard.
I must have the Easter lily to enjoy. We search, but not a bit of lily leaf shows itself through the grass. I had planted it, as Daddy watched, so many years ago.
Now Mom and Dad’s house is sold; buyer and I sitting in for Mom at the large table, two days later.
As the young couple sign many papers, I watch their blind baby and know why I can’t have that bright lily.
She will crawl on the lawn, when Springtime comes, find the flowers, feel the long leaves and smell the fragrance of the bloom.
Pie Bird And Me Wishing To Be Retired?
Grandma’s ceramic pie bird, perched to watch me take curry and sage from its cupboard to flavor a chicken pie, its glossy feathers won’t get covered in my savory gravy as it did in past dishes, buried to its neck. But it might like to be among Granny Smiths and Georgia peaches.
I tried to sell the heirloom at the antique mall, but it wouldn’t be sold, wanting instead to belong to me, have its special place next to Mom’s wooden pepper grinder and egg timer.
Would the pie-bird like to return to its job, whistling the cook back to the oven, as steam escapes from its beak?
I’m taking so much time to muse in my kitchen, among treasures used for decades, I need to finish supper.
The Gardener
My old friend Oty taught me much about gardening as she sat on a tiny chair and we weeded her huge garden, talking about life . She made me promise to read this at her funeral, so I did.
Earthworms retreat. Japanese beetles beware.
No sprigs of weeds to be seen, nor grass between Lenten Roses and Resurrection lilies.
Violets are dug from pathways. Everything’s a weed, she says, if it’s not where it belongs.
The Chartreuse Pen
Asked to interview the mystery play’s director, a piece for the local paper, I brought my favorite pen, chartreuse, for luck, for courage, rehearse questions, then we met.
He was relaxed, had done this a lot. I pushed my excitement down, as he told me of his early days, many years ago, Catskills Mountains Summer Stock.
He interviewed actors for their plays. A handsome young man was hired. He asked if there was a spot for his wife JoAnne and that’s how Paul Newman got his start.
Josie’s Sunday
Josie dressed for church and hoped no one would notice the spot that wouldn’t wash out.
She walked into morning’s brightness, came back for clippers to cut spring flowers.
Smells of lilacs and cherry blossoms mixed with Sunday roasts cooking in kitchens, on her short walk, sparked her hunger.
In the foyer, she placed her walking shoes next to forgotten umbrellas, put on her pretty pink pumps she’d worn five Springs and Summers.
The plate was passed. Today, a coin and the bouquet were her widow’s mite.
After the service, Josie looked around for the lady who drove her home and sometimes to lunch. She was not there and no eyes met hers.
She took a moment to admire the stained glass, then changed her shoes and hobbled home.
Josie wiped the plate that was always next to hers, started cooking a sprouted potato and limp carrot.
The phone rang, she turned off the stove, dabbed on a bit of lipstick and said to the air, I’m going to the Golden Corral.
The Cleaning Lady
She had lunch with friends. Said I’ve got to run, I’d like to be done by four.
She drove up the mountain with breathtaking view, parked in the circular drive.
She thought, The Jaguar is gone, they’re not at home, I’ll have the house all to myself.
Note on the fridge read, We’ve gone to the store. If we’re not back, please lock the door.
Here’s coconut cake from the party last night I think someone spilled his drink.
She sparkled the crystal, polished copper and brass, cleaned black marble, granite and gold.
Got Persian hair off the big bedroom chair and straightened rows of sparkly shoes,
vacuumed the Persian, the rug not the cat, and folded the white mink throw, swept the long deck, picked up her check, the coconut cake, locked the oak door and dreamed.
Chapter 5 Endings
Dying and death is, of course, a part of life, the ending of lives here on earth. Sometimes it’s expected and comes as a relief. Then comes taking care of all the arrangements, the cleaning out of their stuff, and then going on with our lives.
I closed your eyes, called your Hospice nurse, then sensed an other worldly white light filling the room, of more than peace, love and joy.
Line from Saying Goodbye
Giving
When January winds kept us inside, Mom and I we attacked old maple chests, There was sorting and giving to be done.
We put poetry books where there’d been caps and coins, pens and medicine. Soon there was an empty dresser. I have a friend whose child needs it.
Someone who fishes will get a kick out of these “trout” socks, still in the box. Peace lilies that graced the church go to homes with sunnier windows.
Dad’s nurse visits with milkshakes to share. We give him pie. Daddy ate key lime the night before he died. Key limes, the color of peridot.
How he loved to cut gemstones. What’s your wife’s birthstone? I asked. November, he said. (So was my Dad’s) Will this ametrine do? It shines
from gold to purple. And for you a jasper bolo tie. I sort through stones and rings. Some to sell and some to give. I’ll surprise Nancy with a bright topaz, called London Blue.
Mourning
Only Jack Pines and straight Poplars remain on a red clay hill.
Absent owner hadn’t seen the beauty, ordered crooked undergrowth removed. Took two weeks to burn and die.
Ancient Dogwoods and Mountain Laurels won’t bloom this Spring. Neighbors mourn.
Just as we see on TV, absent husband ordered her feeding tube removed, as she was still smiling. Took two weeks to starve and die.
Loving memories remain.
Family mourns.
Out of Dog Food
We try to make our dogs happy.
Woofer, the Pit-bull, who adopted us, jaws and mouth moving, into the depths of his red bowl, wolfed down stale cereal and leftover meat.
Dainty Breezy, golden long-haired mix, looked at me, then tasted liver fried in bacon.
Years ago, Tiger, our old greyhound, too sick to eat his canned mashed meat, ate rice and ground beef instead.
Flies lay eggs on dying dogs. I mistook their larvae for Tiger’s food that looked much like puffed rice falling from Breezy’s lips, all around her blue bowl.
Burial of A Friend
His thin tanned hand pulled at strings of hair, wet with sweat, across his bald head, wiped his face, wet with tears.
He leaned on a gravestone, while the preacher sang The Old Rugged Cross.
He and the other mourners remembered when she had a kind word for them all and fed them fresh trout, greens, potatoes and pie, until nothing tasted good to her and she just gazed at a small vase of mums next to her on a table.
There were many bouquets of roses and lilies around her grave. Let’s give more flowers to those still alive.
Saying Goodbye
Bert, when you quit your meds, insulin, dialysis, I understood.
Your struggle for years just to get out of bed and eat would cease.
Your doctor said you’d be gone in two weeks, but for six more months
you rested, thought of your life, were sorry for some things, remembered some happy times, talked to God.
Near the end, you ate a little of your favorite ham and cheese, content to listen to Rawhide, Highway Patrol, you’d seen a hundred times. I think you’d gone blind.
I closed your eyes, called your Hospice nurse, sensed an other worldly white light filling the room beyond peace, love and joy. Do you feel better now? I asked. I know you said, You betcha.
Then Stella slept on your side of our bed. I could pet her fur, as we comforted each other. I left her with our neighbors. They love her too. I moved away.
Rocky Knob Cove
Part II
My new life began very shortly after Bert passed away. A wonderful man “scooped me up,” saying he’d been looking for “me” a long time. It was during Covid, when depression from uncertainty, loneliness and isolation caused people to need a big change in their life. I was relieved, not sad, when Bert died. It was a long time coming. I, of course, needed a change. Soon I would need to look for full-time work, whenever there would be an end to this infernal pandemic, even though I was past retirement age.
I’d been taking care of Bert while he was bed-ridden, staying with him in hospitals, taking him to doctors as many as ten times a month before that, for years. Dave is the complete opposite of Bert: healthy, wealthy, techy, and wise.
At seventy-plus we met and started this new chapter of our lives, the happiest we’ve ever been, on thirty-seven acres within the Nantahala Forest, at a place we named Rocky Knob Cove.
Part II Chapter 1
We Meet and Move
I was more excited than I’d been in decades, Almost felt like a giddy teenager. Dave, the great guy who “found” me, said “You’re in for a wild ride.” So we let this new adventure begin.
He kissed me… took me to LongHorn that first day, Held my hand through the parking lot, nice to the server, easy conversation. Good signs, I thought, as we ate our steak and shrimp. Line from We Meet
The Bachelor
Dave worked his planned life with care, thrifty except for the Porsches, Air Force avionics, then a career, a research engineer with clearance for circuits, sensors and gizmos.
For years he worked on radar in the Guard, made rifles to shoot on ranges weekends, stopped when he reached the top, with medals of bronze, silver and gold.
Moving farther from Atlanta, fixed up houses, sold them, then one on fifty acres in a forest, built a huge shop to keep his tractor, truck, tools. He kept bees, raised corn, chopped wood.
Early retirement because he could, got a puppy, Bonnie, now I’ll stay home with you. They walked on deer trails in his woods, told neighbors, There’ll be no hunting here.
When Covid hit, shelter in place, made a lot day-trading for something to do, banging his Apple Mac, walls closing in, then one day, thought Bonnie and he needed to find me.
We Meet
After a week of talking on the phone, Three hours a day, seven days, we meet at a feed store, down the road from his place, he kissed me. We crossed over his bridge, up the hill to his bachelor house with a porch and huge shop he’d built, surrounded by a well kept forest of wild azalea, shagbark hickory and chestnut oaks.
He took me to LongHorn that first day, held my hand through the parking lot, kind to the server, easy conversation. Good signs, I thought, as we ate our steak and shrimp.
Next week he bought new kitchen things ‘cause I love to cook, tires for my car to keep me safe, hiking boots for walks with Bonnie on deer trails. We’d stop, kiss, told me he’d looked for me a long time, that my picture showed kind eyes. I knew he wanted a lifetime mate, and silly me, I thought I just wanted a dinner date.
House Hunting
What kind of a house do you want?
Dave asked me. I said, two-thousand square feet with a porch. Do you want a pool? Wow! but no it’s seldom hot enough to swim.
Where would you like to live? he asked. Somewhere near here, I know my way around. We looked on Zillow and I was thrilled at the houses we would see.
A huge log house was at first a hunting lodge, grand staircase with character and beauty, up a mountain gravel road, thirty-six acres, surrounded by The Nantahala National Forest.
Dave said, Something’s familiar about this road, I’ve been here before. As a teen, camped eight miles up the forest road, with his folks, rode his bike right by.
Come onto the back porch, I said. He looked at the waterfall, magnificent seven levels. I’m going to buy this place, he said, It’s the start of our wild ride.
Writing Lesson from Years Ago
I found a lesson I’d forgotten about, meant to jog our minds to think of a subject to write. Name three places you’d like to be, it said.
Cool cave, mountain top and waterfall, I wrote. Name three places you dislike. Filthy subway, dark store selling soulless stuff and noisy restaurant.
Write a brief story about your words. I began. Let me be at a waterfall, cool splashing crystal drops, away from this oppressive dark place.
Some people say they’re destined to have what they’ve thought, invited, invoked, but I think we’re rewarded, given gifts,
for now we see from our back porch our own waterfall flowing down to give us nature’s peace and beauty.
Fresh Air
In this new chapter of my life, looking for something to wear in my huge closet, a tag in a shirt, a thrift store find, read Jones New York,
A memory shattered my mood, I put it on, thought back to the time when I had to leave, get some fresh air, when I’d watched Bert sleep or when he was taken for tests, or got his blood cleaned out, I felt alone.
I killed time at Jones New York, touched cashmere and silk, smelled Chanel, watched ladies buy them. I could not. The nurse called me. I went back.
He woke up, said he was sorry for his present state and all the past. I said, Okay, You’ll be home soon. There were many more times in those small rooms, until he was gone. I felt relief.
Rocky Knob Cove
We found a place never dreamed of, to live for the rest of our lives: thirty-six acres in the forest, big log house, red barn, greenhouse, meadow and creeks.
We moved lifetimes of stuff, many trips from his place and mine, up the mountain, on the curvy, gravel forest road. We scrubbed, painted, weeded, sorted.
Trees cried for help. We took rocks off roots of Pussy Willows, Lilacs, Silver Bells, fed them, yanked lights off tall oaks and treated infested Hemlocks. They thrived.
Many neighbors came, their houses hidden in this forest, we thought we’d been alone, except for wild hogs, coyotes and bears. Old friends and new, now for dinner parties.
We walk Bonnie on trails though our woods, find Ladies’ Slippers, Trilliums, on our way over a wooden bridge, to what we named Rhododendron Park and Baby Falls.
We ride through the Nantahala, trout streams, up the Cherohala Skyway, mountain views. How did all this happen? we ask each other. Chance, blessed or rewards? as we relax on our back porch, transfixed on our very own waterfall.
Flaming Azalea and Other Lovely Flora
On our walks with Bonnie, in Dave’s forest in Georgia, there were huge, pink, wild azaleas. Blooming on our rocky hillside, ten feet above our fire-pit, is the brightest orange one, so welcomed here, so rare.
Dave knows forests’ trees, teaches them to me.
Bald Cypress won’t grow its needles ‘til all chance of cold is gone. Some monstrous ones, grew near his creek, and one is in our yard.
Rose of Sharon lined his upper drive. One grows next to our front yard peach tree. He calls these Althea, makes me think of Alethea, my Grandmother’s and niece’s name.
Part II Chapter 2
Early Summers’ Warmth Complete
The waterfall in our backyard is by far the most unusual exciting part of our property flowing to many creeks. They have a cooling affect, along with high elevation of our mountain, on the temperature.
People stop on our road, that separates our thirty-six acres in half, to get a good look at the cascading splashing. We chat with them as we walk around with Bonnie, our Border Collie and some became good friends.
Dave said I pulled off our first dinner party... with ease, said I looked so happy. I love to entertain, didn’t get to for all those years... Line from Entertaining
Synchronized fireflies’ lights top off glorious sunset. Line from Early Summer
Waterfall Excitement
Tourists, hunters, neighbors from three miles up, stop out front on our forest road that cuts our land in half, to look at the waterfall, beyond our backyard.
When walking Bonnie, we stop to greet and chat, Where y’all from? we ask, Hunters say Hanging Dog or some town around. Travelers say Florida or Tennessee.
We tell them of other waterfalls, high and wide, down on our one-lane forest road, especially our own. Some folks we invite for a closer look.
They take pictures while they “Ooh” and “Ahh.”
On a sunny day after a rainfall, it gushes golden-tan, no rain for awhile, clear trickles. Our favorite are crashing, bright white, eight feet wide. Whichever look it has, we’ve made each other’s day.
Entertaining
Dave said I pulled off our first dinner party, fourteen guests, with ease said I looked so happy. I love to entertain, didn’t get to for all those years, but I did cook, for a hundred old folks, for three years,
their eggs, biscuits, cornbread, soups, brunswick stew. I changed planned recipes, made them taste good for their last meals.
Now I’m called the social director of our six miles of forest road.
Dave grills chicken served on fancy paper plates, I decorate backyard tables with flowers.
We have dinner parties with ham, turkey, homemade apple pie, served on red and gold rimmed china. We bring neighbors together, who’ll be life-long friends.
Early Summer in Western North Carolina
Synchronized fireflies’ lights top off glorious golden sunset, dark rose, purple horizon, then bright twinkles across black heavens.
June’s lilies last a day, more orange glows in gardens tomorrow, among lacy ferns. Leggy pansies say goodbye.
Big bouquets of Great Laurel grace mountainsides, creek-sides, replace some call China Dishes, that bloom on Mother’s Day.
Rain make waterfalls roar. We move pots of sage, thyme, dill from sunny places, so they won’t get soaked.
Hummingbirds, Ruby Throats, green and grey, fight to drink their sweets. Bees buzz into all garden’s blossoms.
July Fourth comes fast. We mow, clean grills, get ready for backyard guests who come to share the joy.
Wood Thrush Pantoum II
You called to me or to your mate I missed your distinctive song when I moved away, three summers passed by, I wished your friends would come.
I missed your distinctive song looked up in tall trees in the yard. I wished your friends would come, singing morning and evening melodies.
Looked up in tall trees in the yard, in early summer’s warmth complete with morning and evening melodies, thrilled for three days hearing your voice.
Early summer’s warmth complete with flowers, friends and fun, thrilled for three days hearing your voice, you called to me or to your mate.
Greenhouse Food and Fun
Yikes! A snake! My hand inched down into green beans that first year. Dave saw the copperhead and then it was dead. We googled the look of another long snake with multi-colored belly, but its name could not be found.
We sealed the screen sides where they’d slithered in and hid under a silly deck, soon ripped out, its wood we used to make big, low beds for corn. Its sprouts grew three inches, tops bitten off by a little lizard or bug. We tried to grow corn again, gave up,
planted potatoes there instead. They thrived. I loved to dig Idahos in Dad’s garden long ago, kept it growing when he got too old. Now green potato berries appeared, how odd.
Tiny, twirly water sprayers hooked to little hoses, always clogged with dirt from the creek water. We yanked them out and used an easy hose.
Helter Skelter beds, not straight, no room to walk around, after the last brown bean plant tossed out for erosion control onto the sandy grade, we moved metal, wood, dirt to start out next Spring with straight rows of raised beds.
Yellow squash infested with white flies, maybe watered too much. Trial and error for all the plants, abundant tomatoes, potatoes, beans. In Fall, broccoli, cabbage, we’d never tasted so fresh before.
A cucumber, we thought, popped up in the large low bed. One had crawled across the floor the year before. Instead it grew into nice oval cantaloupes. Excited to try one, disappointed, it tastes like a cuke.
Our greenhouse is our happy hobby, full of warmth and fun, nurturing, growing, surprises and love.
Fourth of July Barbecue
We knew this was the place to have old friends and new, we’d been here just a month and a half when all thirty guests, folks from five to eighty-five, came to enjoy the day.
Nice, sunny, seventy-six, never hot near the cool waterfall. Red, white, blue flowers and flags decorated tables and yard.
Hamburgers blazed up on the grill, turned it off and let it cool. Hungry people waited, ladies put plenty of salads, snacks on the bar.
Trivia questions entertained. Why is the area near called Hanging Dog? Name five white flowering trees here. Answers made us laugh, then a scream. A snake sunning itself on the stone steps, its rattle went home with the teen.
We walked with ease down to Baby Falls, the greenhouse, but the brave young couple, expecting soon, hiked up beside Rocky Knob Falls. We all said we hoped their baby would wait ‘til another day.
We’ll have this an annual event, see these folks next year or some just down the forest road.
Part II
Chapter
3 Dogs
We love dogs. Bonnie is fourteen years old now. Sometimes she still walks to the barn and greenhouse with us, has an appetite for her homemade chicken stew. Occasionally friends visit and bring their dogs and Bonnie likes them. She whines when someone picks up their small Miniature Pomeranian and would prefer it stay down with her.
Our neighbors on their way to Tennessee saw a fluffy Mama dog, on the forest road. It stood still in the headlights glare, beckoned them to stop.
Line from Wolfie and Wolfio
Our Dog Friends With Their Humans
Daisy and Charlie, the Labradoodles, have a new place to roam, no more little back yard. Their humans bought them twenty-five acres to run, play and explore just a few miles down the road.
Chloe, the big Malamute, greets us one by one around the dinner table at her humans’ Hemlock log house, a mile from us in the valley.
Across the road and up the hill, Sunny, the Golden Retriever, with sunny personality, plays with a ball under the table while we view cumulus clouds on the mountains.
Leo, the black Malinois brought his newlywed humans. Sammy our youngest human friend throws Leo a rubber bone over and over ‘til Leo climbs on the couch for a nap.
King Tut, the Chinese Crested gets so excited, jumping and tail wagging, watching videos of Huskies racing in Alaska and bears roaming in the snow.
Wolfie and Wolfio and other tiny Pomeranians come to visit from up the road. Every time their human girls pick one up, our Bonnie whines to have it put down right next to her.
Walking With Bonnie
Bonnie barks, disturbing two young rat snakes sunning on the little wooden bridge, plunging into chilly Rocky Knob Branch. Now she chases Cotton-Tail, zigety, zagety, across freshly mowed meadow. It finds cover in Rhododendron’s thicket.
Hot blast of air as we enter the screened high tunnel to water all the green beans tangled together, way over our heads, prickly squash, last of the broccoli. Potato plants have flowers, luscious heirloom tomatoes, looking forward to salads and sandwiches. Bonnie lies in the shade outside waiting for us.
Our baskets full of today’s picks, we walk back another way, along the creek adorned with bright pink zinnias, blue forget-me-nots, with small waterfall gurgling from under the metal bridge. There’s the path shaded by tall oaks, maples, hollies. Bonnie leads the way.
Wolfie and Wolfio
Our neighbors on their way to Tennessee, saw a fluffy Mama dog, on the forest road. It stood still in the headlights glare, beckoned them to stop.
Cindy being kind to all creatures, nursing doggy wet and dirty, no houses nearby, very dark night, put her in the car over protests from her spouse.
She texted me to ask if I knew where a long haired Chihuahua lived, feared Mama and her pups were dumped in Tipton Creek, where there’re coyotes, bobcats and bears.
I asked her for a photo, put it on Facebook’s Lost And Found. In just an hour, an answer from way up the road, said owners had looked for doggy for days.
The Miniature Pomeranian had chased their Caucasian Shepard and got lost. Next day Mama Dog, named Wolfie was back with her people.
We met her humans with Wolfio her puppy. That was the start of our friendship and their children became our youngest friends, our Border Collie, Bonnie, loves the little dogs.
Buddy and The Pups
A car horn beeped outside our gate. Bonnie barked and we went out. A lady we knew from three miles up, held a small spotted puppy. He was cute. I almost hit it. Can you keep it ‘til I drive back at five? I’ll try to find its home.
We knew it had been dumped, no neighbors for miles on each side of us on this forest road. We called him Buddy. He drank, ate and slept behind a chair on the porch.
The shelters were full so I put his picture on Lost and Found to try to find him a good home. The lady came back, I told her the people who wanted him. She could decide who was best.
She called when she got back home, to our surprise, she’d found two more. They’d all been on the forest road, with the coyotes and bobcats, too young to find food or drink from a creek.
Messages kept coming. A man from eight miles down had found a couple puppies just like Buddy. He and his friend would keep them and all got good homes by the next day. Buddy was renamed Frank.
Wild Hogs and Bear Dogs
These mountain men called bear hunters kill the wild hogs. They’re friendly folk and all seem to know our neighbor, a sixth generation mountain man. He’s a comin, one said as we passed him on the road, a big grin on his face, with his rifle poised and ready.
The “bear dogs” wear radio collars so hunters know where they’re running and chasing for miles. “Squaw”, a young Plott hound, flopped down in our backyard, stretched out, soaked up sun, hoped she’d have a rest, but her owner, in his Toyota Tacoma, soon came right along. He showed us his Garmin tracker, another hound on the hill.
Too many wild hogs roam these mountain forests, mess up our flower gardens and alongside the roads, flip over rocks, dig to find grubs and worms. Corn is given to fatten them up for tasty sausage and hams.
Brown bears are their neighbors and share their feed, but the hunters mostly leave them alone. The hunt done, dogs returned to the back of the truck, their heads stuck out with their tongues stretched up, above their cages, to lick their captive, the huge Razor Back on top.
Part II
Chapter 4
Reflecting
I reflect and contemplate our lives, our land, our state and world. What happens to them matters to me. I write of some things that are scary, sad or happy. This chapter goes from a horrible hurricane to Dave and I holding hands and walking our path.
Rescue boats maneuver along downtown streets amid buildings torn apart... As I plant daffodil bulbs, I know we were spared, Line from Helene
Look down to the forest floor. Don’t disturb that ground. Line from We Walk The Path
Warm October Day
Butterflies and yellow leaves flutter together, land on flowers, ferns or fall to the lawn, Ouch! Acorns hit my head as I tackle briars, cut low branches, rake sticks and clippings for the last weeding of the season.
Bonnie lies on the grass in the shade, rests a lot now, much older than me, ninety-eight, in people’s years. I doubt I’ll tend my gardens by then.
But for now I bury daffodil bulbs, start garden and wildflower seeds inside to plant in Spring, This Summer’s zinnias grew tall and bright by the creek and forget-me-knots as blue as the sky.
Helene
Helene entered Florida’s Big Bend, Steinhatee leveled, houses on stilts crashed into the sea. Perry, Tampa Bay, Tallahassee saw hurricanes before, this one kept going right up the Chattahoochee, Atlanta, Augusta, Chattanooga impacted, fifty plus rescued off Newton, Tennessee’s hospital roof.
Likened to the flood of 1916, its waters went higher than a brick marking 26 feet in Asheville’s Biltmore Village. Swannanoa hadn’t flooded this bad since 1791. A hundred bodies, floated down roads and creeks, changed into rivers, with their homes, cars, debris, some found in trees, no room at morgues.
Chimney Rock’s town of beauty, the lure of Lake Lure gone. Yellow leaves begin to fall as ladies line up to collect linemen’s laundry, Loyal sons hike up many miles over rocks, fallen trees, mudslides to reach their isolated Moms, they walk out past neighbors turned blue.
Rescue boats maneuver along downtown streets amid buildings torn apart, no cell service, no electric, no water, food, or gas. Convoys come with volunteers, machines to make roads, supplies, medicine, ambulances, generators. Where is FEMA?
Here farther west, where Helene was predicted to come, tempers flare when cashiers can only take cash, banks closed, no trucks to deliver food from flooded warehouse, but we had no wind, needed the rain, have no damage, good roads, cell and internet will soon be back, some stores still have food. As I plant daffodil bulbs I know we were spared.
Trees For Beauty, Fruit and Warmth
In Spring we see Dogwoods, pink and white, and googled flowering trees we’d not seen before, Serviceberry, Elderberry, on creek banks, Wild Magnolia high on the hills.
One hundred peaches on the front yard tree, but our orchard didn’t fare so well first year. Late winter was warm, trees blossomed, in March it dipped down to zero.
It’s time to enjoy the intense blue sky and raining leaves. Look quick, the yellow ones kicked by the wind cover Rocky Knob Creek. Golden, crimson, purple cover the hills.
Wood heat is best for warmth. We use maple, oak, locust, and hickory logs found all over the woods and paths, up by the waterfall and down to the streams.
No need to fell live trees to split, stack and burn for glowing heat in new wood stoves, placed in the fireplace in great-room where we cook, eat, surf news, entertain.
The other’s downstairs, casual family room, where we watch adventure movies or just talk for hours about our past jobs, travels and who we knew or how much we love each other.
Rock Atop A Boulder
On a boulder of schist, gneiss and quartzite, her stony face with perfect profile, turns upward, toward the waterfall.
Jagged hair sweeps back, carved from millennia of wind and water. White lichen spots her cheeks, green moss warms her throat. She sparkles of tiny garnets in Spring’s sunlight. Mica eyes see bluets growing on wet rocks, daffodils, wild dwarf iris on the bank.
Her shadow ears hear the peaceful splashing of Rocky Knob Branch.
Silhouettes and Silence
Early morning sun silhouettes golden ground atop the hill to the East.
Plott hounds howl, excited to start their hunt and run through the woods to find their prey.
Shadows in the meadow cast by tall oaks next to the creek, meet a single Pussy Willow tree.
Twilight silhouettes a silver sheen atop mountains to the West, birds sing their evening songs.
Vera Wang designed our bed, comfortable beyond belief, we sleep so deeply, no sirens to blast the night’s silence, only rarely do we hear the coyote’s howl or owl’s screech, just the soft roar of Rocky Knob Branch below our bedroom window.
I awake to see tall black trees, bare branches against dark white winter dawn, blush of blue, hint of pink.
We Walk The Path
Look down to the forest floor in Spring and step with care. Wild flowers are there, not grown in city gardens. Lady Slippers pop through earth’s comforter of leaves.
Look down to the forest floor. Don’t disturb that ground. Trilliums, one here, another there, seeds carried by ants, take years to bloom white, pink and red.
Look down the forest path. There’s more to see, pinecones, wild blueberries, footprints beyond the iron gate. Mr. Wild Hog missed the Earth Star growing there.
Look up to high forest trees. Tulip poplar, maple, locust, hickory, growing their green leaves now, but the dead and dying hemlocks lose their needles to the forest floor.
Look down our path to what we named Rhododendron Park, tall trees thinned out there, clearing with gnarled branches long evergreen leaves, huge white flowers in summer.
Look, a wrought iron table and chairs beckon us to sit, next to splashing, slippery rock we named Baby Falls, flowing from Rocky Knob Branch and our Big Falls.
Look into pristine water, rocks covered in chartreuse moss, tiny bluet flowers popping through, I’d never seen before. We transplant some and dwarf iris to our back yard.
Look “as the crow flies” a mile or two away our creek flows to a bottling plant; its clear water sent to people thirsty for a taste of mountain purity. We find ours abundantly.
Look up to dark blue Carolina sky. We hold hands and talk of how it would’ve been, if we’d met decades ago, lived our whole lives together, not just these too few at the end.
Linda Marie Gifford lived in Hayesville, NC for thirty-two years with her late husband, Bert, after moving here from Florida. The friendly people and natural beauty of Western NC inspired her to write essays and poetry, so she joined The North Carolina Writers Network West with its many critique groups, classes and conferences. She was a coordinator of their monthly poetry and prose readings at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Dozens of her poems and essays have been published in anthologies. In 2021, after Bert died, she met a man who said he and his Border Collie had been looking for “her” for a long time and bought them a big log house that had been built to be a hunting lodge, on thirty-six acres surrounded by the Nantahala National Forest, north of Murphy, NC.
Living there with no worries, amid neighbors who became great friends, hikes in the woods and up to their own waterfall, rides around Western North Carolina, and keeping a greenhouse have made their retirement years happier than they could have imagined.
