Yonder Mountain: An Ozarks Anthology

Pattiann Rogers

Pattiann Rogers Pattiann Rogers was born in Joplin, Missouri. She received a BA in English literature in 1960 from the University of Missouri-Columbia and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston in 1980. Her first book, The Expectations of Light, was published by Princeton University Press in 1981. She has published eleven books of poetry, two prose books, and a book in collaboration with the artist Joellyn Duesberry. Her most recent books are The Grand Array, Writings on Nature, Science, and Spirit (Trinity University Press, 2010) and Wayfare (Penguin, 2008). Her next book, Holy Heathan Rhapsody, will appear from Penguin in fall 2013. Rogers is the recipient of two NEA grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Literary Award in Poetry from the Lannan Foundation, and five Pushcart Prizes, among other awards. Her work has appeared twice in Best American Poetry, and four times in Best Spiritual Writing. She has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Montana, University of Texas, Mercer University , and Washington University. She was an associate professor at the University of Arkansas from 1993 to 1997. She is the mother of two sons and has three grandsons. She lives with her husband, a retired geophysicist, in Colorado. qQ Fury and Grace Shoal Creek, near Joplin, Missouri, where I grew up, is, for me, the archetype of all creeks. We went to see Shoal Creek often when I was 143 young, like visiting a highly interesting acquaintance who lived a strange but purposeful life. The creek was always there, more or less in its same place, doing its mud-and-fish, worn-rock-and-ruffledrapids , racing act. I could wade through the clear waters where it widened near a small dam, bend down, and look from my world through a silver, reflective boundary into a world that was forced to remain within that boundary—tiny black snails like spots on the stones, fat tadpoles that seemed just heads with wispy tails, crawdads propelling backwards to hide beneath muddy leaves and muck, olive-green minnows so narrow and rock-colored that they were almost invisible until they flicked and moved as one body from sun to shadow. And when I looked up again into the world of air and sky, it seemed I had been existing in another life, among alien creatures whom I nevertheless knew and regarded with respect. I occasionally swam in Shoal Creek, learning of it in another way, standing waist-deep in its murky water, pushing against its force on my body, or sitting in its shallow rapids making it rear up, ruffle and surge against my back. Who was it? It came and went constantly yet was always present. McClellan Park was situated on a steep hill, a high cliff above Shoal Creek, a cliff covered with rocky bluffs and caves typical of the area. A picnic at McClellan Park always involved a precarious hike down the hill, everyone slipping on rocks and gravel, skidding and grabbing bushes and trees to keep from falling. I held onto my dad. At the bottom we would walk for a while beside the creek, which ran close to the hill, pressing against the rise of land. My dad skipped rocks over the surface of the water, big leaps and then smaller. My brother and I tried. A favorite story of my dad’s was the time my brother, six years old, started running down the hill and couldn’t stop, shouting and yelling. My dad, running after him barely grabbed him by one arm, swinging him out over the creek just before he would have plunged into its deep, rushing waters. Once we went in the rain to see Shoal Creek mad and powerful, high over its banks, its white froth climbing and fighting against the 144 Pattiann Rogers thick poplars marking its old boundaries. It rolled and thrashed over its single-lane bridge. We were consigned to viewing the flooding from one side, many cars lined up before the impassable crossing. People in raincoats and boots stood around outside their cars watching in amazement , proclaiming in low voices, with reverence and respect, as if Shoal Creek were justified in this show of frightening rebellion. But I love Shoal Creek most, I think, because I first learned about the bodies of boys while parked beside it at the end of dirt fishing lanes, the sound of its life continually cresting...