[with two poems by Debra Kaufman]
Deep shade, red spruce, heavy moss – the trail switches up, cuts back, winds steadily higher. We can smell the transition, conifer tang, slow decomposition. We can feel it on our faces, in our pores, sweat cooling, wraith of mist blown up the ridge to envelope us. And we feel it somewhere deeper.
Something changes, so gradual we sense it before we know it. Daylight creeps through, one tree with toothed sun-colored leaves, then two; smell of spring and sweet flowering even at the end of autumn; witch hobble and pale mountain asters give way to dwarf goldenrod. Look, here are beech drops, flowers faded, seeds set, never green, their skinny bodies and appendages like effigies set among the trees they parasitize. We stop and breathe. Again, deeper. This is beech gap.
Leave a patch of ground alone long enough and it will grow into what it is meant to be. Its personality is in its community. Why does this beech gap persist? Its elders, Fagus grandifolia, stunted and twisted in communion with mountain maple, wood ferns, sedges – why not fir and spruce intruding? Elevation, precipitation, mountain aspect, soil pH? Centuries-old seed repository in the duff? Visitation by warblers, jays, and small mast-seeking mammals? Protection by allelopathic residues? Protection by mountain spirits?
All of these may define but don’t explain. It is the community that becomes itself: shallow spreading roots and pervasive mycelia, leaf and frond, sporangium and ovule, every one essential to the personality of place.
And you and I? We may choose how tall we stand. We choose which way we face, whether we learn from our elders, teach our children. We rest here for a few minutes and commune with this other. The silence of a ridge-crest glade: fragile or resilient? Retreat or restoration? Will we descend from the mountain and bring this peace, this purpose, into our own communities?
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These two poems by Debra Kaufman speak to me of reverence and restlessness, of longing for community and the fear of isolation. Are we welcome on this earth and will we welcome others? Will we create more than we destroy?
As described on the cover of her book, God Shattered, Kaufman discovers how personal disillusionment can be a guide to finding the godly within ourselves. These poems lead us to contemplate and understand our place in this fragile world.
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Great White
An angel is nothing but a shark well-governed.
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Everyone carries a shadow.
The less it is embodied in the conscious self,
the blacker and denser it is.
Does a savage self always lurk
just below the surface,
on the hunt, no matter
our good intentions? Is our higher
nature ready to do battle against the dark,
harpoon at the ready?
If, as the Buddha says, there is no I,
does awareness reside
between empty spaces?
I understand so little.
But I can see Aleppo is rubble,
its people scattered;
anyone who listens can hear the cries
of girls being shuttled into brothels,
can imagine comforting someone suffering
here or half the world away.
How do we stop what is sacred
from being ravaged,
witness life out of balance yet not despair?
There must be ways
toward doing what is right.
Why else, as Job asked, would
light be given to a man
whose way is hidden?
The great white shark
is nearly extinct. It can sense
a beating heart over a mile a way.
. . . . . . .
Welcome
You, one of seven billion born
helpless, nearly hairless,
one more chimp-cousin
in our midst:
Will you be swaddled,
neglected, anointed,
will you breathe air
that smells like rain?
Which foods will sustain you,
upon what ground
will you walk? What storm,
fires, floods will sweep
over you, what languages
will you learn, what
dances, what prayers?
Here is my hope for you,
little stranger: may you feel
beholden to this wondrous planet,
may you take your hungry,
humble place in it,
may you dedicate your life
to making it a world worth
revering, holding, passing on.
poems by Debra Kaufman from God Shattered, Jacar Press, © 2019
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Debra Kaufman grew up in the Midwest but has lived in North Carolina for thirty years. She has published three poetry chapbooks and four full length poetry collections: God Shattered, Delicate Thefts, The Next Moment, and A Certain Light.
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The Beech Gap is a rare subtype of Northern Hardwood Forest, found scattered in small patches surrounded by Fraser Fir and Red Spruce in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and elsewhere at the highest elevations of the Southern Appalachians. The Beech, mixed with small numbers of Buckeye, Birch, and Maple species, are stunted by the cold climate and high winds, with an open understory but relatively rich herb layer. Some patches in the Smokies are fenced to prevent destruction by invasive non-native wild pigs. Why this seemingly stable climax plant community remains stable and is not overtaken by Spruce-Fir remains a mystery.
. . . . . . .
All photos by Bill Griffin from Southern Appalachian Naturalist Certification Program on Southern Appalachian Ecology, September 2020, Great Smokies Institute at Tremont; instructors Jeremy Lloyd and Elizabeth Davis.
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V E R S E ❦ I M A G E 