Appalachian Light: Four Poets, part 1

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HERE, WHERE I AM: DOLDRUMS

HERE, WHERE I AM: DOLDRUMS

The Quilts Left Behind....and Re-discovered

When I was home two weeks ago, I went poking around the attic in our old and now empty farmhouse.  Underneath the attic stairs was a cubby hole, what I'd call a hobbit hole, in which we found several old quilts no doubt sewn by my grandmother Marion Fry Stripling (Bailey).   They'd not seen the light of day in who knows how long, with portions of them frayed, eaten or rotted away.   My grandmother was a N. Georgia mountain woman, so quilting would have been part of her heritage.   I'm wondering what to do with these quilts.  Portions of them are too beautiful to be thrown away.  If anyone can help me find someone to restore these quilts, or parts of them, I'd be grateful.   I'm offering the photographs I made of these too long ignored beauties.

A large hole in the center of this quilt's universe!

Stains and frays....

Time consumes even the most beautiful edges of our creations.

So much like a fireworks exhibition!

 
Though more lasting, if we take care of what women's hands have created.

A CRADLE OF GREEN

The Appalachian range has been called "the vegetation cradle of North America."

Our mountains also cradle some of the most beautiful waterfalls and creeks on the planet.

Watching the water slide over these rocks, I thought of silk flowing around a dancer's lithe body.

And the sky, how the trees reach up to it, as if chanting Look up, Look up!   And so I do.   And then down again to the cradle of earth from which this glorious green grows.

HERE, WHERE I AM: MOTHER'S DAY MORNING

HERE, WHERE I AM: MOTHER'S DAY MORNING

Happy Mother's Day to all of those honor and sustain the mother who sustains us, this blue-green planet with her wildflowers and wonders.   Her hungry mouths.  Her many creatures huddled under leaf and brush and creek bed on this rainy Mother's Day morning.

HERE, WHERE I AM: SOLACES

HERE, WHERE I AM: SOLACES

The Great Smoky Mountains Wildflower Pilgrimage renewed body and spirit at the end of April, the one T.S. Eliot called the cruelist month.  Although the rain and hail Thursday morning sounded pretty cruel, the rest of the day was gorgeous, as was the day following.  We all need to get out on the trails here in our mountains and smell the leafmold, search for the fragile and not so fragile plant life that abounds.  Our mountains have been called the vegetation cradle of North America for good reason.   We should let it rock us into solace when we need it.  Or challenge us to action when we need to wake up.

SLOW INTERNET CONNECTION

MY INTERNET CONNECTION HAS SLOWED TO A TORTOISE'S PACE, AND UNTIL IT IMPROVES, TRYING TO BLOG IS A HUGE FRUSTRATION.  I HOPE TO BE BACK EVENTUALLY AND I HOPE YOU WILL JOIN ME.