Endangered

our mothers, and then we blew upon the seed heads to see how many children we would have. We knew we would marry, because we would swing "love vine" (plain old dodder to those who lived in town) over our heads and, if it was found growing the next week, and then flourishing the week after that, our true loves would be ours! We picked pokeweed in its infancy for mother's kitchen, lay in its cool shade in high summer, and later squished the berries into ink for our gaming. Everything progressed in a natural and noticeable line. We planted the seeds in spring and gathered in fall toward the winter's famine. We frolicked with the baby chicks in spring, waited for the cow to "go fresh" and slaughtered the hog in November for the Easter ham. We sat outside each night-perhaps those who lived in town had air conditioners -within the swirl ofour "gnat smokes" and beneath a panoramic sky that we came to know intimately. Now I must leave the town to even see the sky, and never remember quite where to look for Cassiopeia or Draco. It is often months between times I even see a star. Geese are not heard to fly over when the CD player is on and the sirens are passing. I wonder ifgeese even fly over a town at all. Now, the newspaper tells me it has been discovered that the universe is both larger and at least a billion years older than we had thought. Funny ... I had not noticed. Now I live in town, and I did not see it passing .... Endangered Every half a century the blue ridge claims a line 1800 1850 1900 buffalo, brown slow face elk, great rack of branching bone gray wolf, holy eyes see it happen 1950: yours and mine a generation who looked straight ahead as the graveyards receded behind: the face the rack the eyes the hunger. —Kathy Cantley Ackerman 17 ...