Patricia Asuncion’s most recent poem to appear here was “Big Boy Games” (March 2019). 

Up in Smoke?
By Patricia Asuncion

Shaded under sugar maple, yellow birch and magnolia,
she’s aged well. Eastern cougar, red wolves
and black bears her companions all these many years
with occasional settlers paying respect now and then.

There have been wars and railroad intrusion
to endure, but nothing like the stubborn kudzu
of developers and tourists these days. Why ten million
visitors come traipsing through these parts
a year seems like!

I worry about her breathing lately. Her air and streams
just don’t seem right since all these money-hungry people
came around her. Some of her old friends have been chased
away for good—the emerald dragonfly, the Carolina parakeet,
the American chestnut.

She’s been around for 300 million years, but
folks can’t take her for granted. This great lady,
the Great Smoky Mountains, will end up
in ashes just like us, if we’re not careful.