Chestatee by Jeff Franks

Chestatee

Jeff Franks

 

The Chestatee is time,

water moves from the sky

in uncounted increments,

like crystals of dust in an ancient time piece,

down the round mountains,

pulled into dark and gentle valleys,

propelled into a seines of mountain laurel

that fail to hold the water back,

like the Cherokee failed to hold back the tide.

 

The Chestatee despises the rhododendron

that scratches and claws steep slopes,

homogenizing proud peeks like Scotsmen

who lusted for the high ground,

above the old river

gallantly carving its old friend

the Appalachians,

on its way back

to the sea.

 

The Chestatee unwinds

like a worn out watch spring,

inside a desk drawer,

no longer keeping time

from spinning and swirling counterclockwise,

like blood flowing into a vortex

between fractured rocks,

beneath a smooth and hairless face

beside a formal top hat with a dirty brim

and a hawk’s feather in the band.

 

The Chestatee is a quiet conveyance,

moving the great and the small

slowly downstream,

a liquid continuum,

filled with pieces of deadfall

expelling drowning white termites,

purifying and smoothing

jagged rocks stained with old dried blood,

that wash up along its banks,

with stories to tell the drivers

of the four wheel drives

grinding them beneath their knobby tires

to crystals of dust.

 

 

 

www.flickr.com/photos/jgfranks/

 

 

 

 

 

Done