Big Frog Mountain’s rebirth

The climbing spring frog is reborn
The Old Man weathered through dark storm

The red sun’s spirit rekindled
The Old Man’s quick blood remembered

Keepers of the house support the sky
Life’s work inspired by watchful eye

Post Script

I wrote this poem on August 28, 2016, after climbing Big Frog Mountain during an eight-day solo backpacking trip through the Cohutta and Big Frog Wilderness Areas. I reached the summit as rain began, set up my tent between downpours, and listened to thunder while the mountain disappeared into weather.

I had been reading about Cherokee associations carried in the names of this landscape: Cohutta as a shed roof supported by poles, and the spring frog as a climbing creature whose return announced seasonal renewal. Those images met the storm, the mountain, and my own tired body. Big Frog became an old man awakening after winter, his quick blood returning beneath the red sun, while the mountains stood as keepers of the house beneath the sky.

The poem was not written from a distance. I was sleeping on the mountain, and I would spend the following day descending into the Big Frog Wilderness and climbing back to the summit. The old stories gave language to what the trail had already made me feel: the mountain was not scenery. It was alive around me, and for a moment I felt included in its awakening.

A companion poem from the same journey, From a giant’s dream, turns the movement around: here the mountain awakens; there, the mountain dreams.

Image credit: Joseph E. Patterson, photographed during the 2016 Cohutta–Big Frog Wilderness backpacking trip.