Don't Leave Hungry: Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review

Forever Mountain

F R E D C H A P P E L L Forever Mountain (J. T. Chappell: 1912–1978) Beyond the curl of scrub pine hills, Beyond the Pisgah-eating Rat, behind The grisaille of new-leaved hickory ridges, Past Black Gap opening its vistas like a chinoise fan, There is a deeper mist of mountains. Unseen till now. The tumbled mezzotint range unknown because The weather was too close. But now a marble smoke has cleansed my vision. I see my father has gone to climb Easily those slopes, taking the time He’s got plenty of, making good headway In the fresh green mornings, stretching out Noontimes in the groves of dogwood and oak. He has found a walking stick of second-growth hickory And through the amber afternoon he measures Its shadow on the flank of the mountain. Not marking the hour, but seeing The quality of light come over him. He is alone, except what voices out of time Come to his head like bees to the beetree crown, The voices of former life now indistinct as heat. By the clear trout pool he builds his fire at twilight, And in the night a granary of stars The 1980s ❚ 163 Rises in the water and spreads from edge to edge. He sleeps, to dream the simple dream Of the horses of pine trees, their shoulders Twisting like silk in the high wind. He rises early-glad and goes his way, Taking piecemeal the mountain that possesses him. My eye blurs with blue distance, I see no more. Forever Mountain has become a cloud Which light confuses and murmured songs dislimn. This is a prayer. 164 ❚ The 1980s ...