Sorrowing Swannanoa 

Danita Dodson

A mourning dove coos above

the ruins, as these old mountains, 

uplifted and blue, declare

that they’re still here, cradling us,

where so much else is gone forever.

They stand as witnesses to fugacity, 

the truth Helene has forced us to face—  

 

the truth that some things fall,  

while some things rise—

a paradox in the zenithal light,

casting long, sorrowful shadows, 

whispers across the wreckage,

orbs of sunlight spilling over  

crumpled walls and tangled tin.  

 

Distant on the horizon,

these mountains seem insentient,

unmoved by our deep grief,

scathing the sky returned to blue.

Yet ‘neath their stoic gaze,  

fallen forest giants have woven

a matrix of trunks on steep slopes.

 

Surely, they howled in anguish

as massive root balls tore free 

from their skin, exposing

their ancient veins to the open air, 

yanked out whole while pulsing. 

You can’t feel the mountains’ pain 

until you enter the woods to see it. 

 

Then you know that mountains cry

when the wind gashes through them,  

howling in the lattice of limbs,

a Blue Ridge roar of grief,  

funereal requiem echoing

the burden of standing watch over 

everything to which they’re kin.

Danita Dodson is the author of three poetry collections: Trailing the Azimuth, The Medicine Woods, and Between Gone and Everlasting. Her poems have appeared in Salvation South, Untelling, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Mildred Haun Award of Excellence. A native of Northeast Tennessee, she calls the quaint town of Sneedville her home. More at www.danitadodson.com.