#8 for National Poetry Month - On Hiking the Smoky Mountains - First Draft

On Hiking the Smoky Mountains, Tennessee

 I keep thinking about the Cherokee

on their land some 40 odd miles away –

the word reservation – as in something reserved

for.  I keep thinking about this

land that is no-one’s and for which so many

have deeds – pieces of paper marked and stamped

with the state’s seal – a proclamation that makes

it so.  And so of course I think

of my own black skin   in this South

in these mountains – the place of the Blue

Smoke the Cherokee called it – and how

on edge I am in it   such that I’ve a knife

dangling from my waist  a hunting knife

inscribed with a stamp that says something

of the Chippewa nation.  To be sure

I have never cut a man   but there have

been bottles broken   pockets full of rocks    

a baseball bat all meant towards grave

harm and thank God it never has quite come

to that.  But here again these good folk look

through me as though their being here has nothing

to do with my being here – carefully cataloging

the trillium and the showy orchids and the violets

and the hemlock and the deer and the blue heron

and the black bear – all of which the Cherokee

had names and stories for long before these good

folk had deeds.  I keep thinking about how

it’s a good bet none of these Cherokee come

here to hike – to walk for the sake of walking

this land which they once felt free to walk.

I’m thinking again   of course   about

the girl with us     my best made thing

and what I want to teach her about land

and people and respect and how maybe

the only way to do it is to take her down

to the reservation and sit in a bar there and tell

stories – the ones I was told about land

and hope that there we each hear a more

familiar song – something of smoke

and gods and nations – something to make

us feel free in our skins without all the sharp

edges we think we need to get by.

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