Cabin Architecture

January Elegy Inheritance Their colors stark beyond my desolation, black tree trunks trace skeletons on chalked skies. White and black gulls feather the air, fanning cold winds to earth. Grey pigeons cluster. I sit alone and toss my few crumbs onto snow. -Margaret D. Kirkland Cabin Architecture The homemade cabin where I live now Has windows that, as revealed by their Architectural details, were once doors. Was it a fear of fire that made the man And woman who built this place put full Openings into the walls at all quarters? Or were there reasons they knew best for Making these big openings into otherwise Completely filled (that is, windowless) Sides? I have a guess about the reasons. It wasn't fear made these people leave Openings into the woods. They had always Hunted things we never see. They just Wanted to keep clear views, to be able To walk out after food or into the light. They didn't see the need for windows then, Those shields behind which separated scenes Fill our eyes, but not our hands or mouths. -Frans van der Bog Granny grew up in the mountains With corn shuck dolls, Cauldron-made soup, And mountain lions. Marriage took her with a ruby ring And her wedding quilt to A foreign land Of cypress knees in sultry swamps. My mother and I played with Castles of Spanish Moss, Snake bracelets, Pine straw tunnels, And petrified wood. But Granny's memories settled in my soul And I came home. One day my daughter will inherit Ring and quilt, But she already shares Childhood memories of Icy mountain streams, Foot deep snow, Blackberries in July, And wind walking through the grasses Of an Appalachian bald. -Barbara Eberly 56 Earl Palmer 57 ...