My grandpa is the last mountain man I know
Raised alongside the wood and fog of the Great Smokies
In a little log cabin on Bull Mountain.

From the day he was born he hated snakes.
As a newborn he survived on cow's milk as his courageous
Father hiked miles away to remedy the copperhead venom
Running through his mother's veins.

He worked with his hands from early childhood,
Learning how to sow crops and gather firewood
Always making things grow, whether plant or flame.

As a small boy, he walked to his small one-room schoolhouse
At the top of the mountain, going uphill both ways.
During lunch, he'd whack sticks with the other schoolboys
In a childhood game known only by that mountain.

When winter came, my grandpa and his eight siblings
Waited eagerly for their yearly Christmas delicacies,
A peppermint stick and an orange in a brown paper bag.

One year, a foreigner came to the mountain
And found the little log cabin where my grandpa's family lived.
She snapped a black and white photograph, the only tangible recollection
Of my grandpa's youth, and she mailed it back to the mountain.

As a teenager, my grandpa grew restless
So he left his family on the mountain
In search of new adventure, and headed north.

He found modern work in a glass-making factory,
And once he built his house from the ground up,
Settled down with a wife, a son, a daughter, and
A garden filled with roses and vegetables.

01/14/2009

Posted on 03/14/2009
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