Appalachian Georgics

J^ APPALACHIAN GEORGICS by Parks Lanier PLANTING BY THE SIGNS The moon herself has organized the days In various sequence prosperous for work. Avoid the fifth... The seventeenth bodes well for planting vines Virgil. Georgicsl The old ones say that I must plant by signs, With scorpio for corn and gemini for vines, But virgo is for flowers, nothing else. How can I tell the sign is right? I ask, And from a nail behind their back porch doors They drag a drug store calendar adorned With rampant lions, leaping bulls and fish, Languid virgins, crabs and scales—certain signs I need to know, while, dark above, our stars Like unused seeds spill out and one by one Unheeded fall upon the barren ground. 40 ? *?* öS i *,* ¿8 5¡A ^1* 3*5 G ?**««.«U \ M * 5·;?·* ( .·fc *& & fe* Sï*» -SN \ iW^tfÄV^ato •·, ?¿VSP ·_·?#?·*\\ ^*? X $&?& £·?> ÔEMfr *W Vi ra ·· MOTHER OF MIGRANTS Incredibly, when olive trunks are split A root will push its way from the dried-out stein Virgil. Georgicsl At Christmas come the cards that wish me well, That list the babies' names, or those now grown. My cigar letter box holds promises From sons who make a better life by springs Whose waters I will never taste, on hills That give them crops a man can boast about. What can I write that they would want to hear: That lightening split the oldest tree we had, Its sap runs thin, sure sign a tree will die? A CHANCE OF RAIN In doubtful skies we can, therefore, predict A weather change, the time to sow and reap Virgil. Georgicsl Praise God for doubtful skies, the preacher said, For chance of rain or equal chance of sun, Uncertainties that keep the people hung On God who may do either, may do none. The time to sow and reap the gospel's seed Is always when the barometric bones Are aching like the devil, and old scars Itch like just before they healed, making scabs. 42 * 1,> A / ???m . •s s~ f "> *·*? ^N. ^ RED SKIES AT NIGHT for Cratis The sun, arising, settling in the waves Gives weather signs of surest consequence; . . . when setting We see a range of colors cross his face: Dark hues declare for rain, and flaming red For east winds Virgil. Georgtcs I (trans. Bovie) When oceans lapped these mountain bottomlands, Who knows how large the young sun rose or set For sailors such as rode the waters then? Red skies at morning, sailors take warning: What ships sail now beneath LeConte's dark dome Or down the Blue Ridge Valley toward the sea? Such weather signs are vestiges of Rome Our Celtic grandsires strained to memorize When conquered by those mariners who called That fishbowl north of Africa "Our Sea" And dared to forecast weather by decree. To know the weather on the mountainside Watch crow and owl, juncos in the trees, Where hornets build their nests and crickets crawl, And count the stars within the moon's bright rings, Or failing that, how many fogs an August brings. 43 ...