Appalachian Ritual

Emerald nobility
Reaching to the sky,
Makes the eye a ruler
Fit to measure by.

In the spring an ecstasy
Lies upon the hills—
Purpling with new red-buds,
Ruffling colored frills.

Make an early ritual
For the mountain side;
Pine and beech are spectators,
White dogwood a bride.

Give a pair of ivory birch
For a wedding gift,
All the mountain side a church
Where wild flowers sift

Velvet carpet-petals down
To the edge of hill and town,
Showing wild-grape fringes through
Opal cloud-thrones dropped from blue.

Now the summer like a queen
Does her mountain home in green;
With a season for a bier
Some old majesty lies here.

Autumn gold is swift and fleet
With a wing upon the feet,
Rushing toward a winter breath
Pausing for immaculate death.

In such economic bliss
And a swift parenthesis—
In immortal mountain trails,
There are resurrection tales.

All the while the mountains know
Sudden death is never so.

—Rachel Mack Wilson