Poetry Break: "Trail Home"
Trail Home
We left the hills of homeland,
Our faces set for west;
Blue soldiers rode beside us,
Old Hick'ry's truest best.
Behind us passed smoke mountains,
Dark forests, silver streams;
Down lay our dead in silence
To dream lone, bitter dreams.
We lingered by broad waters,
Till winter made them land,
Then crossed that father river—
Child, woman, man, in hand.
We reached the arc-cut mountains:
The soldiers said, "Yur home,"
Then rode away and left us...
Strict orders not to roam.
Some settled in a hollow—
Or drank themselves that way;
Some dove down deep, cold rivers;
Some wept in ash and clay.
Oh, hills hide bitter stories—
This land that now you till—
And stones hold acrid secrets
In ways you never will.
Horace Jeffery Hodges
Copyright 1993
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 5:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Thanks, Jong-min. The poem is for the Cherokee, who were marched from their eastern lands in the Smoky Mountains to the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas Territory in 1838.
My great-great grandmother, who was a Cherokee, either arrived in Arkansas with the tribe as a small child or -- more likely, since many children died on the way -- was born to survivors of the Trail of Tears.
I can't vouch for the historical accuracy of the poem's details, but that's poetic license . . .
Very nice Horace, as a fan of the Alvin Maker series this makes a nice counterpoint, and very emotional too.
Thanks, Alistair, but call me "Jeffery" . . . or "Jeff."
I wasn't familiar with Alvin Maker, but Google makes us masters of the universe. Now, I know who he is and what he does.
1991-95 seems to have been a good period for you.
;)
--lollabrats
Maybe it was, though there was a nearly 9-month period in 1984-85 that was my first burst of poetic activity and resulted in a poetry prize at UC Berkeley.
Jeffery Hodges
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