Misty Days

I’ve shared some verse before of Joy Harjo, the first Native person to serve as the U.S. Poet Laureate and is in her second term. Here are excerpts from two poems from her 2015 book Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings. Accompanied by (with one exception) images from the southeast U.S. where her Muscogee (Creek or Mvskokvlke) people lived.

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Kentucky

Forever (a song)

In the night of memory

There is a mist

In the mist is a house.

It’s the heart where we lived.

. . . .

East Rim Overlook, Big South Fork NRRA

Once I was broken by time.

There was no house in the mist.

I lost sunrise. I lost your fire against mine.

A country was falling and falling.

. . . .

Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I crossed time to the house in the mist.

It is not any house; it’s the heart where we live.

. . . .

from Forever (a song), Joy Harjo in Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, 2015

(the link is to the entire poem)

And now, excerpts from Surfing Canoes

White Sands National Park, New Mexico

We’ve felt the winds surf the waves

Alongside the canoe

This is where joy lives

Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina

This moment of earth breath

Lifting up with us

Letting us go with us

. . . .

From, Surfing Canoes, Joy Harjo in Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, 2015

Cumberland Trail, Obed National Wild and Scenic River, Tennessee

One more image, and bit about history. I’ve driven I-75 near Macon, Georgia dozens of times on trips between Florida and Illinois. A couple years ago, for the first time I pulled off to visit nearby Ocmulgee National Historic Site and was gob smacked by the ancient mound builder site that is a spiritual location for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. This week, the National Park Service announced a purchase and donation to double the size of the park. Humans inhabited this area for 17,000 years, and it is the largest archeologic dig in U.S. history. The Muscogee (Creek) lived here until they were removed to Oklahoma in 1826 by the Treaty of Washington.

Great Temple Mound, Ocmulgee National Historic Site, Georgia

The Waterfall -- Mary Oliver

I’ve shared some images from Obed Wild and Scenic River, a national park area in the Cumberland Plateau in Eastern Tennessee. With lots of opportunities for whitewater sports and rock climbing, the hiking trails are limited. A ranger suggested nearby Frozen Head State Park for hiking. We were off to find some waterfalls.

It was a warm, humid, sunny afternoon, and contrasty light is not favorable for photographing waterfalls. However, the forecast called for some storms and rain, so we headed out hopeful that conditions would change. We past a couple small falls on the way, but the light was too bright, so perhaps a visit on the way back.

We got to a nice twin fall with a big pool as clouds were moving in. About ten young kids were playing around the fall as parents watched nearby. Chance and I took a seat to watch when thunder echoed between the mountains. And — no kids and nice light.

Debord Falls

Few poets can imbue a poem with nature imagery as Mary Oliver. In 1991, Poetry published Oliver’s The Waterfall — For May Swenson. When Poetry received a massive endowment many years ago, all it’s prior publications went online so we can mine this treasure.

For all they said

I could not see the waterfall

until I came and saw the water falling,

its lace legs and its womanly arms sheeting down,

while something howled like thunder,

over the rocks,

all day and night—

unspooling

like ribbons made of snow,

or god’s white hair.

At any distance

it fell without a break or seam, and slowly, a simple

preponderance—

a fall of flowers—and truly it seemed

surprised by the unexpected kindness of the air and

light-hearted to be

flying at last.

Gravity is a fact everybody

knows about.

It is always underfoot,

like a summons,

gravel-backed and mossy,

in every beetled basin—

and imagination—

that striver,

that third eye—

can do a lot but

hardly everything. The white, scrolled

wings of the tumbling water

I never could have

imagined. And maybe there will be,

after all,

some slack and perfectly balanced

blind and rough peace, finally,

in the deep and green and utterly motionless pools after all that

falling?

Mary Oliver, The Waterfall, Poetry, January 1991

National Rivers and Trails -- Cumberland & Obed

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fire on the Cuyahoga River in 1969 leading soon thereafter to the creation of the EPA and the Clean Water Act. A year earlier, Congress had passed the National Trails Act, and established two national trails—the nearly 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail and the over 2,600 mile Pacific Crest Trail. There are now eleven national scenic trails and nineteen national historic trails such as the Oregon Trail, Trail of Tears, and Selma to Montgomery Trail commemorating important events in the nation’s history. The National Park Service oversees these 30 trails, and you can look at them at this map.

Sunrise on the Cumberland Trail

The NPS also recognizes over 1,300 national recreational trails. While currently only two-thirds completed, the Cumberland Trail will extend 330 miles from the Cumberland Gap where Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee come together and will end at Chickamauga National Battlefield near Chattanooga. A stretch runs though the Obed Wild and Scenic River Park in Tennessee, and I got a campsite right next to the trail. You can see the trail blaze on the spur trail next to my car, so we could get an easy start hiking in the morning.

Rock Creek campground, Obed National Wild and Scenic River

Also in 1968, the National Wild and Scenic River Act was passed to designate and protect free-flowing (non-dammed) rivers of natural, historic or cultural importance. Eight years later, Congress established the Obed Wild and Scenic River in eastern Tennessee as an NPS site. In addition to the trails, the park attracts white water running as well as rock-climbing in the 500 foot gorge walls. This campsite is on the Emory River, and the picture below is taken on the other side of the Emory and looking downstream to where the Obed River joins it and then continues running off to the right.

Confluence of the Emory and Obed Rivers

A bonus of camping next to a river is falling asleep to the sound of the whitewater. However, when waking near midnight, it took effort to hear the sounds of the river over the loud chorus of frogs and insects. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, but instead just listen to the amazing music. When dawn did arrive, the valley was filled with mist.

Emory River misty sunrise

Emory River morning

The campsite is near a place called Nemo’s landing and one of the few places you can get next to the river if you’re not paddling through it. After dipping to the river at Nemo, the Cumberland trail climbs back up the gorge wall, but you can hear the sound of the river below even as you climb higher on the gorge. When you get to some sandstone cliffs, and the whitewater is crashing over rock below, you hear the sound of the river echoing off the walls above as well as from the river below.

By daylight, the frog chorus has been replaced by bird song and different insects continued to play their tunes. And though it’s hundreds of yards away and on the other side of the gorge, when a train roars by, it actually hurts your ears that have become accustom to the quiet of the woods.

Old hornet nests

Some of the mist and fog collects on the leaves and drops in loud splashes. Although larger, more popular National Park sites are experiencing record crowds hiking here was a solitary experience. Lat week in hiking nearly 25 miles on five different trails here and at neighboring Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, we didn’t meet a single other hiker.

Misty woods

colorful floor

The trail followed the ridgeline along the Emory River and then turned to follow the Obed valley. While the Cumberland trail continued on its route north to Virginia, a spur trail led down to Alley Ford. This spur is wide and rocky and is the old wagon road bed leading up from the ford where the river could be crossed and a small community once lived. Periodic floods wiped out the tiny communities of Nemo and Alley’s Ford. When we also camped at Nemo last spring, a ranger said that two weeks earlier the campsite had been under six feet of water!

Approaching Alley Ford

Swamp Milkweed along the Obed

As the sun started to rise over the other side of the gorge, the mist began to burn off.

Sunrise on the Obed Wild and Scenic River

Time to rest and enjoy the view before climbing back up to the ridge.

Obed reflections

Eventually, the Cumberland trail will run its full length across Tennessee, but for now segments come to an end. Thanks for coming along on a hike.