There are two ways to be fooled.
One is to believe what isn’t true;
the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
—Soren Kierkegaard
I’ve been there.
Stood at the pinnacle.
That was before
the apocalypse.
water completely took out another
bridge across the Broad River,
this one to Chimney Rock State Park.
The park was closed.*
Took in the vista.
Seemingly timeless.
Looking through the
lens of my old Pentax
the Smoky Mountains
aptly named spreading
across the sky. the Great
Smoky Mountain Railroad
stop In Dillsboro.
I’ve been there.
A quaint town.
Shops galore, the
Smokehouse Bar-b-que.
The engine’s
belching stack
matching the
train’s name
pulling into
the station.
“The Train,” as the Great Smoky
Mountain Railroad is known in town,
pay a lot of salaries in Dillsboro.
Its immediate return has not been established.**
The Biltmore in Asheville.
The flood’s signature
drape its portal walls.
Its exquisite gardens?
Spared per reports.
In the past, Asheville
held a nightly summer
country fest of harmony
and hoedown they named
“Shindig on the Green.”
Does the green still stand?
the flag at Chimney Rock [was raised]
… as a symbol of hope and
strength for all of Western North Carolina.***
I’ve been there—
global warming
was still struggling
to earn a name.
.
Epigraph sources:
Kierkegaard-popular translation of quote from Works of Love (1847). See (https://bit.ly/47UAsvM)
*Helene damages North Carolina Tourist Destinations (https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article293159444.html)
** Dillsboro pulling together after a lashing from Helene | thesylvaherald
(https://bit.ly/3TWZFQF)
***North Carolina State Parks Facebook Post (https://bit.ly/3NaYd9x)
Afterword: Three things: 1). A number of years ago, in the Michigan Quarterly Review a group of literary luminaries joined the fray in a series of seven articles about writing Holocaust poetry. Alicia Ostriker had this to say, “Writing is what poets do about trauma. We try to come to grips with what threatens to make us crazy, by surrounding it with language.” 2). When my older daughter, now a middle school special education coordinator started her undergraduate career at Florida State in Tallahassee, the parents were treated to a lecture to show the kind of thing the students would be experiencing. The history professor involved propounded a theory which is both profound and difficult involving a meta-analysis approach asserting that all events, devastating hurricanes included, have positive outcomes if viewed in a larger context. The point of view is hard to reconcile. 3). Climate change is an existential threat, yet, as with Dorian Gray, collectively we have given away our future in exchange for the enjoyments of the moment. For other related work by the author see “Walmart Was the Largest Retailer in America.” (https://www.poetsreadingthenews.com/2019/08/walmart-debs/) For further reading: NASA website, “The Causes of Climate Change” (https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/causes/)
This poem first appeared in Dissident Voice.
