APPALACHIAN RITUAL
Emerald nobility
Reaching to the sky,
Makes the eye a ruler
Fit to measure by.
In the spring an ecstasy
Lies upon the hills—
Purpling with new red-buds,
Ruffling colored frills.
Make an early ritual
For the mountain side;
Pine and beech are spectators,
White dogwood a bride.
Give a pair of ivory birch
For a wedding gift,
All the mountain side a church
Where wild flowers sift
Velvet carpet-petals down
To the edge of hill and town,
Showing wild-grape fringes through
Opal cloud-thrones dropped from blue.
Now the summer like a queen
Does her mountain home in green;
With a season for a bier
Some old majesty lies here.
Autumn gold is swift and fleet
With a wing upon the feet,
Rushing toward a winter breath
Pausing for immaculate death.
In such economic bliss
And a swift parenthesis—
In immortal mountain trails,
There are resurrection tales.
All the while the mountains know
Sudden death is never so.
—Rachel Mack Wilson
Leave a Reply