Allegheny
Juanita Smart
In the morning we are hungry
as sunlight butters
the fir and hardwood trees
the spokes of light leaping and glancing all the way across the Allegheny.
Now the morning-breath of river
steams from the soft contours of these arched and sacred hills
You are still water
look how the trees float, flat on their backs between your banks
staring at their leathery reflections in the sky.
Overhead the birds are thrilling; their throats are little pitchers of song.
A turkey hen with her 9 wild chicks
clucks and flaps across the trail
the chicks sprawl behind her, then run like plump circus clowns on stilts,
their fleshy red baubles bang against their throats
they smack into each other like skidding bumper cars
until the last chick squirts across the trail
spilling the whole flock, like dice tumbling from a Yahtzee can
as if there is only this one chance to surge ahead and score.
In the afternoon a tangled mess of wind blown trees barricades the trail
no way out, but back
we stop and scan the distance
we’ve already come
squinting, we stare down the light
that blurs a curious apparition,
moving steadily closer,
more clearly now
our visitor dips, and glides, and tip toes forward,
as delicately as a cat
in time, we pause and freeze
the shiny clapper in our hearts struck still
A fox
so ethereal
she could be made of air
brushes lightly between us;
we are branded
with her grace
in that moment
her elegance so fleeting,
she vanishes when we breathe.
And now already the shadows are lengthening
time’s ropey fingers plundering this trail
but always there is the Allegheny
spooling quietly beside us,
except where she grips the shelves and steeples of rock
or plucks at the bones of trees
tightening her strong, white knuckles
around the heavy heartwood
unsnapping her swirling skirts, and lifting her powerful petticoats
showing us what’s underneath,
her exquisite temple
a sanctuary,
blessing us
with disbelief.