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Night on Craig Mountain
By: Sue Shalf
From: South by Candlelight
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Smelling of deerhide and sweat,
tougher than raw leather,
they stalked like Indians through these hills,
cut trails through rhododendron brakes,
built fires against the wild-eyed night,
wrapped themselves in skins and slept,
callused hands close beside long rifles.
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This was no Wordsworthian landscape,
daffodilled and idyllic.
The dreams that belonged to a privileged few
were left behind like winding streets
that curled past debtors' prisons.
What was here as they stalked these
twisting trails
was not a dream for others. It was real,
something they could own.
Here loneliness was a salve, and black skies
beyond the trees burned with stars.
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At night now on this mountain
cicadas' rusty screams rise
above a spring-fed creek;
only this ancient earth remembers
the soft pad of moccasined feet.
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