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Covered

Roaring Fork, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. Trails connected people in the Smokies, a lifeline between tribes, between homesteads. It was natural for footpaths to follow water. On this day I am on one of these tracks, now a road for too many people, that follows benches and contour lines along a totured mountainside. After bridging several drainages, the road settles on following a stream, the Roaring Fork, crossing and recrossing it through open forest interspersed with patches of dark, impenetrable vegetation. Whenever I can, I leave the parade of automobiles and follow the stream, exploring along the banks as far as I can before it disappears into thick banks of rhodendondron, or plunges into canyons too deep to follow. It is after all, just another passageway. I push through understory and come to rest in this small universe. Moss blankets everything. It is a carpet spread on the forest floor, it is sylvan sleeves, it is jade on sandstone. It is a coat against the snow and wind, a sponge against the floods, a coolness against the hot day. And in the middle is a centerpiece, my anchor, a star and her planets, with the milky way flowing around her. She shines in beauty, and yet I know that this heaven is not always so tranquil. When I have soaked it all in, I wonder if I should move on. But still I stand on the edge of the orbit, wishing to be let in, wishing I was as simple as moss, thinking: I will cover you.

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Filename
Covered
Copyright
©Ray Palmer no usage without written permissions
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East/Northeast
Roaring Fork, Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. Trails connected people in the Smokies, a lifeline between tribes, between homesteads. It was natural for footpaths to follow water. On this day I am on one of these tracks, now a road for too many people, that follows benches and contour lines along a totured mountainside. After bridging several drainages, the road settles on following a stream, the Roaring Fork, crossing and recrossing it through open forest interspersed with patches of dark, impenetrable vegetation. Whenever I can, I leave the parade of automobiles and follow the stream, exploring along the banks as far as I can before it disappears into thick banks of rhodendondron, or plunges into canyons too deep to follow. It is after all, just another passageway. I push through understory and come to rest in this small universe. Moss blankets everything. It is a carpet spread on the forest floor, it is sylvan sleeves, it is jade on sandstone. It is a coat against the snow and wind, a sponge against the floods, a coolness against the hot day. And in the middle is a centerpiece, my anchor, a star and her planets, with the milky way flowing around her. She shines in beauty, and yet I know that this heaven is not always so tranquil. When I have soaked it all in, I wonder if I should move on. But still I stand on the edge of the orbit, wishing to be let in, wishing I was as simple as moss, thinking: I will cover you.
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