The Land We Dreamed: Poems

Through the Gap

100 Through the Gap 1778 I. Barbara Lewis When we reached the Gap, a mountain rose up on our right, 1000 feet above us. The solid sky lowered itself like a lid and hid the view below us. Susie began to cry. I tried to comfort her, but the trail before us was dark with trees and dropped into a thick, blank fog. Suddenly the smothering clouds began to run down the hollows in silent torrents, a beautiful and terrible sight. A wind came up and blew the mist away. We saw then, for the first time, the new, green land 101 and entered the narrow, winding trail. II. Susan Lewis We passed Blackamore’s Station in Powell Valley. It was early spring and the flowers that Father calls Indian tobacco, though I say bluebell, were scattered about like little violet lights in the cool green grass. I would have stopped here freely but could not, for Father was bent for Kentucke. He’d been out here before he married. So we left our 102 wagon at the Gap and went on, past the bones of dead horses. Babies and chickens bobbing from saddle baskets. That first Spring out, the men stood sentry while we milked, and the land came on sooner than I’d ever seen. In the winter we were crowded. ...