Appalachian Ground

by Lisa Creech Bledsoe

  Ahh, there she is.

  (Her sly, faux-positive comments about me to everyone else have been redacted, but think vanilla-cream cupcakes infused with strawberry-scented hydrogen sulfide.)

  Time to check back in: I’ve already gotten what I want. In the slough, with the shepherd’s purse in bloom, the voice of the creek and the offering pool.

  The rest — recording it in a way that catches the filaments of light on the water, or reminding us both of a promise and a power we forget so easily…

  (You are chosen. You are connected.)

  …is windfall. The sweetest fruit blown down from the top branches. And maybe a rotten one now and then; those come off so easily you know. Pick it up and polish it on your sleeve, or leave it and keep walking.

  This is not about cinquefoil or speckled trout. The place where you find sublimation — or discomfiture — might be a duplex with a concrete floor and a wooden desk. It might be a suburb dotted with recycling containers.

  Go ahead: run your fingers along the fringe. Your place may be extraordinary. Your place may be desecrated. Claim and explore the outer and inner landscapes. It’s all holy ground.

  And it’s not true that you should only write about what you know. Try writing about what you imagine. Try tropes, understatement, folly. Build yourself an inner gothic mansion and live there. (You’re gonna love folly; it’s one of my favorites.)

  Try missing your mark as much as you possibly can. Walk as if you can’t see, can’t smell, don’t know that there’s a giant patch of bee-filled honeysuckle… Right. There. Write all around it without touching it.

  Remember the old game of molten lava? Stay on the path or you’ll be consumed! Then sigh dramatically, give your final speech, and leap with abandon into the flowers. (You may get stung by a startled bee, but that’s the price of art.)

  Fall in love with the words! There’s no need to be strait-laced about this. I never met an adjective/adverb I didn’t wanna get frisky with. You’re allowed to embolden, wander, reek, galvanize, outrage, bore. You can divulge it, retract and squelch it; cringe, sigh, wallow, grin. Be bombastic and quotidian. (All words I’d date.)

  Do it for yourself. Leave what everyone else thinks in the refrigerator to chill. (See what I did there? If nothing else, this proves I’m hip.)

  The critic inside you will say what she wants. Let her be heard, but don’t let her rule. You be the czarina. Or the secret love interest, if you prefer. Or the crowd vigorously waving their handkerchiefs as the handsome soldier departs on the steamship.

  Isn’t this fun?

  Night Work

  The moon tonight is a golden door, nearly shut. It has snagged, I think, on the sticky knuckles of the great spruce. Maybe on cloud laundry. It will shut soon, but I will still hear the murmur of lovers, the muffled thuds and whispers. Although that might be the bear, snuffling and groaning in the slough. She will have cubs but is not yet denned down for the winter.

  The black mud sucks down the bones of the deer buried below the starlit ridge. The bones become seeds: we are stained and softened and fit together into new shapes, to wait for snow to harden us.

  Put down your plans and concerns. Allow the face you don’t show to be devoured by the dark field and the secret sages who chew and ferment the soil. You are art, and creation. You are infinite love. This is the marvel of the night.

  II. Hive Songs

  Rescued

  wearily I stumbled downstairs and

  before coffee grumbled against

  the piles of dirty dishes waiting to be washed

  both sinks full and the counter

  while water heated for coffee

  I moved dishes from sinks

  into increasingly unsteady stacks

  and at the bottom was shocked

  to see a half-drowned, miraculously uncrushed

  honey bee in the drain basket

  my heart started and rushed

  coaxing her with the care of a surgeon

  onto my washrag, checking wings, legs,

  thorax, antennae

  she was so quiet and still

  where in her body did the stories reside?

  snapping off the gas under the teapot

  I carried her gently into the cool morning

  the restorative sun still high on the mountain and

  wouldn’t reach the house or bee yard for two hours yet

  I thought of the time my grandmother

  popped her daughter’s half-drowned chick

  into the gas oven and in ten minutes

  everyone recovered

  as a 6-year-old hearing the story for the first time

  I was equal parts horrified and thrilled

  remembering how close it had been for

  Hansel and Gretel

  and hugged myself in relief

  coaxing my bee onto the wide porch rail

  I pointed her in the direction of home

  hunted up a fresh, perfect tulip poplar bloom

  in case she needed nectar

  and went in to not wash dishes some more

  ten minutes later I heard a familiar buzz

  and climbing interestedly along the side of my

  pajamas printed with giant red strawberries

  was a still-wet but happier bee

  equal parts baffled and delighted

  I carried her out again

  to the poplar bloom on the porch rail

  but she sailed steadily off instead toward

  the lime-colored trees where the sunshine was glowing

  up the morning mountain

  Listening For My Life

  For so long I was a stranger to myself. Now I am sending out new roots, learning how the trees talk to each other, parsing the language of the crows. I have become a student of the black vultures who came to show me the deer kill, and the crawdads who clean the spring.

  Today, the thrush!

  Her casual mastery of song, dappled breast, and wings carving a scoop of round blue sky. I am listening for my life, remembering how to sing.

  I fold these moments carefully and lay them on the small shining altar of my heart.

  Neighbors

  Pan told me about a black snake

  who lives peaceably in an opening above her door

  Once she saw this snake

  at the threshold of her den

  gracefully lower a length of elegant neck

  to allow the bees who shared her refuge

  to walk on the bridge of her spine

  inside

  Perhaps it is as the poet said —

  "Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky"

  This is the work of snakes and bees

  to make of our differences a bridge

  between us and home

  Bluebells

  This spring we discovered

  while walking the rim of the slough

  a startlement of bluebells

  flung against a steep decline.

  They had almost escaped notice

  being so nearly the color of the deep shade

  beneath the witch hazels and

  young buckeyes hunkered there.

  Together we cut a careful, winding path down and past

  in order to better enjoy those dusky gifts

  next year, should they reappear —

  but at the bottom met mud

  and a stop to our path.

  A tree had collapsed across the creek

  and unable to flow down,

  the backup had drenched the meadow

  leaving no way to cross

  but through the muck.

  Even together we couldn’t

  lift that ruined trunk from the creek

  and great handfuls of rotting wood came up

  with each try.

  The hatchet worked better,

  splattering us both with mire but

  slowly exposing the bright heartwood until

  the creek began to run over and
down again.

  It was later that we got the call.

  Their son was the same age as one of ours.

  It was a violent death.

  No words serve.

  The hard-built path ends where the meadow flooded.

  The bluebells —

  so sensitive to disturbance —

  might not return.

  And the great tree will lie across the creek

  for many years yet,

  with icy spring water slipping through

  the notch cut deep into her heartwood.

  Blueberries

  I have conducted an inventory of the blueberries

  on the mountain above our house.

  There are precisely one hundred and ten:

  sixty-five on the highest bush,

  forty-five on the middle bush,

  and on the low bush, disappointingly

  none.

  When it comes time to eat them I shall count them out slowly like

  the woman in front of me in line at the supermarket

  counts out the change from her pocketbook

  painstakingly, double-checking.

  One should be careful with one’s allotment of blueberries.

  You can’t just leave them in a bowl on the table

  or they might be dumped on oatmeal (all at once!) or

  casually tossed in the air and caught in the mouth —

  or dropped!

  It’s painful to think about, these blueberry misappropriations,

  these failures to savor.

  A single tiny cobbler could be made, and shared.

  One spoonful for each of us.

  Oh, that crust, that steaming plummy scent —

  such intoxicating sweetness.

  One tiny bite of midnight sky for each of us —

  one deep azure ocean surrounded by cinnamon sands,

  a moment of spaceflight and weightlessness…

  The silhouette of the man I love

  walking toward me down the mountain after dark,

  bringing me one hundred and ten blueberries

  as a gift.

  Haven

  Sitting in bed under the open window

  I have just begun to see fireflies

  beyond the moon-limned eaves where the bats moor

  Then a deep gray bending, shuffle

  of takeoff and landing

  warm wing, flutter

  quiet turning, plitter

  past the glow of my book light

  Pouring in and out

  like flour in a bowl, hushed

  they slip, gather, fall, inhale

  sail

  through the tumble-dusk

  We won’t close the roof cap until

  the pups are weaned and flying

  late this summer

  For now I listen to their mothers

  alight, rustle, enfold

  You and I search the same night sky

  but see different things

  Close your eyes and

  sing your way forward

  wing your way up

  stream through

  There will be new homes

  in these woods in autumn

  roosts, forage, haven and

  the forest will welcome you

  To My Crow Friends

  You, I know, because you never forget a face and names hardly matter.

  You’re no villain. I see you swooping over the clearing after the hawks, but you let our one timorous owl stay (he keeps quiet and doesn’t interfere with the Family).

  It’s your intellect I admire; you see how to puzzle up the water and you are willing to carry stone after stone after stone. That’s the story, anyhow. Plenty of open water here.

  I saw you once, furtively looking about before stashing a treat (is anyone watching? this is only for me), but to guard your future you’ll choose tools over treats.

  So yes, the enviable mind and sugar, the variable dialect! You fit in, you do. Come visit me up here on my porch, honey (just leave my bees alone).

  I’m not the first to lean on you for spook factor; you ruffle and shrug it off. But still you gather in a mob around a deceased loved one, never touching, and never returning to that place: death-mystery is strong there, and requires reverence.

  They do say in the city you bring the blackouts. And drop your walnuts into the street to be cracked, waiting for the light to change before swooping in to peck up the treasure.

  You have treasure here, too: your glinting white bits of quartz, a spent shotgun cartridge, a blue Lego. My silvering hair is twined in your nest and I don’t know if that’s bad luck or good.

  Good I think, because you returned the lost lens cap, that charm, and two dead voles (those weren’t mine actually, but thank you nonetheless).

  Your parcels and parliaments, your hovers and hordes, your musters and storytellings.

  You, I know.

  Winter Hive Song

  Walk slowly up the mountain to the bee yard. Every step counts toward wholeness.

  The snow is sifting down like sugar beneath the poplars, and the electric fence ticks in the hush. I click it off, then unhook each line, leaving only the lowest, which I step over.

  It’s too cold to open the top to see if they’ve eaten the sugar cake I put in there last week, on a rare warm day. There is so much I don’t know. This rattles inside me like dry sticks.

  Kneeling in front of the hive, I shake off my gloves and put one bare hand on either side of the box. The clouds of my breath rise: one, two, then a third.

  Nothing.

  I wait, then close my eyes and lay my cheek against the wood.

  The hum rises against my bones, and my heart blooms. The hive sings, and I know the bees will find me.

  When you are looking for the center of your life, you don’t have to be good, or know exactly how this is done. The way is different each time, anyhow.

  Walk slowly up the mountain to the bee yard. Every step counts toward wholeness.

  3 am, The Cats Want In

  sschup sssshupp

  Our paws fit nicely under this door.

  ffit ffit ffit

  If there were something to snag

  we would have it!

  rattle rattle

  Can we come in?

  The dog is in,

  why can't we can't be in?

  thump wump wump

  We won't eat his food again,

  this time we promise!

  It's tasty, but not as delightful

  as an almost-dead chipmunk.

  yyyouuuuuwlll

  Did you get the almost-dead chipmunk we

  left for you downstairs, a few minutes ago?

  scrabble scrtch scrtch scrtch

  Hey! You're up!

  Vixen

  I see you, tame woman

  blundering through the woods to the creek

  your mind flapping like an injured crow

  resisting the implacable journey of day toward dusk.

  Let me ask you a question:

  Do you hear anxiety in the creek?

  The leaves fall, turn to silt, more leaves fall.

  Bones and roots, bits of chitin, a deer

  all the moss and jewelweed, of course.

  Will the creek be used up?

  ❦

  I see you, tame woman

  never quite making your case

  pushing back against gravity

  trying to find the thing to which you belong.

  Here’s a wonder for you:

  Do you hear the creek quarrel and contend?

  The summer leaves shutter her view of the sky

  but she sees the stars every winter.

  Will this happen again?

  ❦

  Here, watch me and you will see what to do:

  Crouch and wait for the twitch.

  Pounce and dig into the wet belly of the creek.

  Snap up the crawfish.

  Sometimes you do not get one.
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  Most times.

  But when you do it is good!

  It is enough.

  Now go home to your den.

  One Thing Becomes Another

  I put banana bread in to bake

  lace up my boots and

  hike out amid great shafts

  of afternoon gold

  The ironweed is nearly gone, but

  goldenrod has exploded like fireworks

  in the field above the house

  The scent of woodsmoke and forest mulch

  go well together —

  one thing becomes another

  Imperial Moth, Adrift

  Last night we left the shed light on