The Mountains' Epistle
creative nonfiction by Sheree Stewart Combs
The Appalachians are around 490 million years old and were once as high as the Alps or the Rockies.
They are older than the oceans, dinosaurs, and bones.
Magic has always permeated the Appalachians. Footpaths led up the mountains and into forests who whispered, “Walk our paths. You are a child of these mountains. We’ll show you mysteries as old as we are. Will guard you as our own. You are ours. Never forget. You’ll grow up one day and you may leave us. It will break our hearts, but we’ll draw comfort in the knowledge that you’ll be back. Dead or alive. And we’ll wait for you. We’ve got nothing but time. For now, Child, enjoy the surprises around each boulder, and the song in the rustle of leaves. Absorb the dappled sunlight as it flickers through an old growth of trees.
Watch us shape-shift into ancient times. Hear the whispers of your forefathers, who also learned of the magic young. Who felt compelled to climb us each day. Drawn to be as close to us as possible, to get lost in our primordial darkness, and catch a glimpse of the mountain spirits that moved just ahead of them. The same spirits that banished the snakes off your paths and cautioned the wild animals against harming you.
Didn’t you wonder why you were never mauled or snake-bitten? Even the wild things listen to us. Their ancestors’ spirits roam here, too. They rub against them from time to time, and learn nothing leaves here, not for long. Not for good. Part of your heart stays, no matter where your feet carry you.
When the people in the level land, where you live now, gaze into your eyes long enough they’ll see our peaks rise up in your pupils. They’ll stare until their expressions grow puzzled, eyes lit with a hint of fear. You’ll not know why they turn away and shudder. When one of them holds your hand it will remind them of the branch of a tree. They’ll swear they can trace deep summer in the veins underneath your skin. You’ll say, ‘You’re seeing things.’ But you’ll know and relish the certainty of us there within you.
Our leaves will rustle in your wild hair when the wind blows. Your companions will look around to trace the source of the murmurs. You’ll pretend to be as puzzled as they, but turn away as a secret smile plays across your lips. You’ll reach up to caress its summer suppleness, and anticipate its crackle come fall.
You’ll climb faster and higher, ahead of your trail mates on legs grown strong from treks up our steep sides. They’ll marvel at the strength in your legs, slender as young tree trunks. Just as they’ve wondered at the echo of mountains in your voice. The whispers that dance around you. The fragrance of damp woods that drifts from your skin.
Those who dwell in your adopted landscape are not of these hills. Their muscles were hardened in gyms or on well-marked trails; their perfume purchased at Macy’s. The volume of their lives muted without the susurrus of primeval hills. They’ve not followed a creek to the mouth of a holler to catch crawdads or slide on sheets of ice. Haven’t scaled a dark mountain without fear, or swung on grapevines without falling to the earth. Didn’t grow up with fear of the Tiger Woman (called the Wampus Cat in Tennessee), or heard her screams ricochet off the hills. Were not drawn into the earth they came from to emerge a creature of the mountains, bones thick as heartwood, lungs coated in coal dust from winters’ fires. They haven’t felt hunger’s surge in their bones, passed down in the blood of your Papaw Obie. Nor been engulfed in the darkness of the mines he labored in. Weren’t pulled from the fire in the grate your Mamaw Hettie tumbled into at age three. Or burned by those flames as their mothers pushed them into this world. Might not know when Hettie carried your mother in her womb, you were a tiny egg in your mother’s ovaries. All your Mamaw’s experiences, carved deep into your DNA, made you and her indivisible. Her thoughts, your thoughts. Her strength pulsed in you, even before you knew it. Or understood this oneness as the reason you cleaved close to her as you grew. Only separating to attend school or climb those hills that birthed, cradled and claimed you both. Mamaw Hettie, as much a part of you as the air you breathed. Your heart beating in tune with hers and the dark mountains that engulfed you.
Your companions in the level land cannot know our magic. It’s not practiced beyond these peaks. They can’t feel its pull or understand why you’ll return here one day to be buried on the mountain beside Hettie. Your heartwood bones forever ours.”
Sheree Stewart Combs resides with her husband on a small farm in central Kentucky, but travels back "home" to the mountains of southeastern Kentucky as often as possible. It is from her childhood in the mountains that she often draws inspiration for her writing. Sheree retired from a thirty-eight year career in social services in 2015 to focus on her craft. She also enjoys photography, gardening, the Argentine Tango, and walks along her road. Sheree has been published in Heartwood Literary Magazine, Beyond Words International Magazine of Literature and Art, and Potato Soup Journal. Follow her on Instagram at shereecombs17.