Clifftop, Wes Virginny

Uno.

into the cool belly we drove
through Indiana
through Ohio
past the capitol
and into the woods
where music flourished

We slept, the car pulled off the dirt road, five a.m. delirium
The sun through the trees awoke us, fluttering light
across the dashboard
Yet, I did not feel rested
rest came
it came as floating
from cool green wood
the trickle of a glacier
the moon readied her best, day by day, until formally clothed


through the skin
to the gut
out the top of the head
lifting
music from nooks
under trees across uneven ground

from the quaking shade
sparks
tugging fragrance
where melody had been
moving through

Libations:
Steel Reserve heavy gravity
gin and tonics
shots of Jamesons
rum punch
in the woods
in plasty cups

tent next to tent next to car trailer and tarp

jamboree's chance accident
buds sending shouts
simmering through camp

falling into songs
tunes charging the air

Kentucky skidded through the curves
Louisianne swung easy
Klezmer plumed the soul
and New York bent lamp posts
Idaho western gold, North Carolina charm
meager
tender
patient
pitch pot fires

(On stage, a walk away, down the hastily named 'bayou road', a path really):



"Judges don't hold this against us but we’re from 'bout thirty miles down the road, in Elkins, and we aint ever heard a this festival." (The band was entered in the non-traditional contest. They played bluegrass.)

the owls, screech and horn
did not know the tunes
the last night
the Red Stick Ramblers from Eunice, La played
didn't stop
through dawn
played all day
going until they were alone
dust and them
mercy


*From the Appalacian String Band Festival: "We are changing the name of the “Non-Traditional Band Contest” to “Neo-Traditional Band Contest.”

Contest results:
1st place - Polecat Creek of Greensboro, N.C.
2nd place - Billy Goat Gruff of Athens, W.Va.
3rd place - Open Door Mission of Florence, Maine

And was lucky enough to camp across from the Forge Mountain Diggers from Bryson City, North Carolina.

Nearby was Dom Flemons (a.k.a. the clacker, or tapper) and the travelers who camped at the fork in the road. See mr t is bad ass.

and Joe Bass of the Wiyos was everywhere.


Due.

Away, across the New River


the Monongahela National Forest
Headwaters of six major river systems are located on the forest: Monongahela, Potomac, Greenbrier, Elk, Tygart, and Gauley.

In its arms

"They called him Granny Lee..." as too catious in battle and on account of his premature aging.

"Bill Monroe, the father of Blue Grass played over in the lot in Cass, across the depot. At one time that lot was covered in lumber, they cleared sixty acres a day...ran lines to the C & O."

The Big 6 went up top, the geared Hiesler chugging coal

up the mountain fer logs, took a load of Hungarians back up ta Bald Peak. It was the Italians who laid the rail through the woods to over by the stone laid by Washington, at sixteen marking the source of the Potomac
over burnt powder, a new state, Union
they were underrepresented in Richmond anyway
hangings and terrible things up in Boyer and Durbin...
the line ran right through here

"The church had a slave balcony, the wood cut from a pit saw, the Presbyterian church on the way to the telescope."
"The one with the stained glass?"
"No, the Presbyterian, can't think of the one yer talking about."

...near Green Bank they got the radio telescope, largest moving object on earth, surface of sixty acres. It's mounted on rails. It's sinking. Among other things, heard it links the GPS for the DOD. No cell towers allowed within Pocahontas county (They let a tower be put up on Snowshoe, pointing out of the the Greenbrier Watershed). Heard that no planes would fly over unless the Air Force is up; I saw two every night flying southeast, very high, very fast--non commercial. And on the tour of the telescope they are cataloging the electronic signatures of every digital camera. The guests are asked to write the make and model of their camera on a clipboard at the front of the bus. They are told this is by no means obligatory. The Blue paint for the complexes cars, trucks, and buildings came from the Navy. The briefing room had a camera pointing at the demonstration desk. Yesterday, the telescope wasn't pointed at the sky. Here is a picture from the sight:


Still,
the music, for days
opened my heart
and made fire of the debris
so blessed was i by this



1'a-r0