The Blue-Ridge Parkway Outside Boone, N.C.

Written on a slope beside a highway located on a mountain

Today I sat on a cliff-side at 3 P.M.

Gazing at deep Blue mountains fading away,

The blotted, shadowed earth gasping

            Against the sky's endless oblivion--

As last week drunken God fashioned

            From brown raw turned over--sticks

                              & stones

 

And later men assigned boundaries,

And divided this view into three states--

            North Carolina, then Virginia,

            Then West Virginia--three hours ago

                        Each vista was assigned a tour guide.

                                    At 3 A.M. this valley

                                    Will be lit by fireflies.

 

Now the light is blinding, and birds rustle

            The tree's branches below--I coo,

            And in return trees erupt, and stray feathers

            Fall and disappear into mountainside foliage.

 

From my perch I look down, and my ear can hear amidst the limbs the birds

            Feet crack the branches, cause stirrings of the leaves,

            Swirling up past trees' canopies,

            Like glowing embers from dying flames.

 

A stretch of road ribbons out from the growth, and

            The sun's heat ribbons off it one bow at a time.

Birds burst out of the trees in stitcheries, and I see now that

The low sun is just a yellow-crusted cut

            That the birds attempt to stitch shut.

 

Time here is measured by the rush of air

            Into my lungs that slows my pulse to the breeze's, and

                        The crisp kiss of wind brings me away from

                        The human throb of the city, like a thief.

 

Reviews

[Nancy Lee Shrader]

Congrats on your winning poem

[Nancy Lee Shrader]

Wonderful!

[Anastasia Starlena]

This is one of the most breathtaking places in the US in my opinion. I live in Texas and lived briefly in North Carolina and I must say the nature and the leaves in the fall that is where a person can find true inspiration and beauty. This was a beautifully written piece.