Smoky Mountain Rain

Smoky Mountain rain, fresh and clean, driven through the cracks and crevices
of the cold crystalline aquifers in the deepest dark far below our warm, sunny world.
This precious resource filled up the gargantuan canyons of Earth’s oceans eons ago;
long before we humans strutted the stage of creation.
It was and is the source of all life, a gift from the Unknowable.

Smoky Mountain rain—life-giving moisture;
borne on racing continental winds from two great oceans.
One warm and tropical, the other perilously cold, far to the setting sun;
both contributing the life-giving elixir;
falls on some of the oldest mountains in existence.

Smoky Mountain rain, sometimes falling gently with a mother’s touch on the trees and plants. Other times, pounding the earth in sheets, washing away needed soil;
surrounded by jagged shards of lightening,
followed by the booming of ear-splitting thunder;
seemingly mad like two human’s passionate embrace.

Smoky Mountain rain, driven, sinks into the earth
through the humus and topsoil, trickling into the depths.
A joining of two elementals, water and earth;
bursting forth in springs, streams and rivers,
giving life to everything it touches.

Smoky Mountain rain, nobody owns it; although some might think so.
All share in its benefits.
All suffer from its absence.
No one owns the Smoky Mountain rain.
Smoky Mountain rain—the source of all life.


Chuck Connors, March 26, 2010