Highway 129, Union County

I left White County
And ascended into the mountains
Of Union County.
The road upon which I rode
Slithered and coiled,
Riding on the back
Of so many tree-covered ridges,
Up and down,
Higher and higher
Then back down into the valleys,
Past the mountain streams and rivers,
Hidden among the oaks and poplars,
Modest beneath their leaf-cover.

The people here are tall and upright,
Hardened by such rough living,
Known to test their faith
In a God who placed them here
Among the rampant beauty
Which graciously spills out its worth,
Leaving little ground
For crops and riches,
But feeding their souls,
Who call for the poison
And wrap devilish snakes on their shoulders
Testifying to a solid trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
To God himself and all the assembled, in communion,
Until that self-same judgment
Strikes and lays their bodies beneath that dark earth,
To lie among the leaves
And the whisper of the cool mountain streams
And to find a rest from their labors.

Along the tree-darkened highway,
I found a spot along a stream
Just south of Blairsville,
Where a marker spoke of the life
Of Byron Herbert Reece,
Who felt the sweetness of his mountain home
Like no other farmer-poet,
And dribbled lyric rhymes and lines
To far away places like Los Angeles and Decatur
Until the sometime loneliness of God's bitter judgment
Brought the bloody death of his parents,
Stained the breath from his lungs
And overwhelmed his winged heart,
Stealing his faith away
Leaving him with hard conclusions
In his little cabin along the stream.
Until nothing was left
But a stone tablet on a hillside,
Lines on a page
And a black metal marker along Highway 129.

The winds still blow across the ancient mountains,
Which groan as their faces fall downward
To the valleys below, passing their magnificence
Into the streams and rivers which flow
Quietly downward to the sea,
Passing the dust within which we rest, the hills above us
And soon, even the remnants of those who went before
On, necessarily, to the salty sea
From which we all take our birth.
And the markers which note our lives and passing
Will rust and fade until the dreams and visions
We held so dear are just the whisper of the water
Flowing softly over the stones and sands below
Polished and passed, like us, to the sea,
To lie in final union with those troubled souls
Who find their final peace, at last,
In the rise and fall of the ocean deep.