![]() I have just got back to England from a 4 1/2 week ramble through the Southern States of America, through Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. The first three weeks were spent trekking along the Benton Mackaye trail backpacking, camping and looking out for bears. One of the several reasons for the adventure was to walk though the land of the Cherokee Indians who had once lived in these forests, creating a distinctive and rich of culture of their own, They had tried valiantly and intelligently to accommodate the growing influx of settlers into their lands but were betrayed in treaty after treaty by the new American government, in the end most shamefully by President Andrew Jackson who forced them move out of their homelands and across to the west on a trek known as The Trail of Tears in which 4000 people died. After that vast areas of the old forest was cut down by logging companies and settlers clearing farmland. A few of the Cherokee managed to cling on living in remote and inaccessible places to now form the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. And in many places the forest has returned growing back over abandoned settlements, into designated National Parks and on land returned to the wilderness. Much of this poem was written in my head as we trekked through the greenwood. I would scribble remembered lines down in my notebook by headtorch light as I lay in my tent at night listening to the song of cicadas and distant sound of animals in the dark. This is still a draft ![]() Mist damp and warm, Eddying in clouds Through gaps in the trees My knees aching, and the tendrils of the wood Grasping at my weary boots. I crossed the line into the wildness of trees. In the borderlands, In the bear darkness. And amongst the Hickory and the Hemlock, Watched by the unblinking salamander Where the sacred cedar holds the spirits of those, Who slept upon this springy earth, I trekked through with my light-footed companion Up the broken trail. Gasping and cursing in the pagan heat, Pausing for breath as the sweat Ran into my eyes, Already sticky with spider’s webs and dirt. I envied her grace and her weightlessness And the way the greenwood wrapped itself around her. ![]() Whilst I, a temporary alien, Bending double, leaning on sticks, Empty of thought Looked down and saw Mica glistening like desperate snow flakes On the steaming griddle, And pushing through the long earth Hearts-a-bustin’ and Jack‘O Lantern And purple Aster. Which made me pause Sling off my pack and rest against a rock And look up through the tumultuous leaves And listen for those who once slipped through the shadows Vanishing like fireflies dancing in the dark. These trees are not that old I am told, And the brown river is bursting’ with water dredged With the rising of the last moon from the deep Atlantic, So that each prodigal moment is carried back to the forgiving sea The Jewel Weed and Poison Ivy are of this season, Each day ends What then really remains then of the memory of the Cherokee? ![]() .I remember someone once told me That the skin on your hand, Renews itself every five years, Replicating the scars and stories, Of childhood and adolescence. Your hand holds memories not artefacts And so it may be With the forest of the Cherokee, The tale before the tears is still written Upon the endless forest which is A serpent coiled around the, The land, Like a dragon around a hoard Of copper, iron, gold, manganese and garnets. Written also so it Lingers in the tangled growth and the way of the fox And the falls and the path to Asginayi - ghost place - which is also Skeinah And with these memories The smoke rises, In the space between the longing In the dreams of old fires In the shiver in the waters of the forgotten creek. ![]() .And as the trees danced in the light of Autumn I heard in the chant of the cicada and frog A old remembering and their song, “There was wildness in us Wild in the way our blood Flowed with the Red Wolf and the Black Bear, Wild as the dappling light Flickering on the Copperhead Wild in the sacred moment and the awareness of being seen Wild as we rose with the smallest of things To great heights.” 'Cherokee Smoke' is the first output of my Gone To Look For Americas Project: an exploration in poetry, prose, song and performance of the Beautiful Broken Dream that is at the heart and soul of America and in all of us. Planned are two albums, a book and a tour.
For further information contact Steve at steve@stevebonham.net
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