The Silent Cove Returns by Kathryn Magendie

Last night the rain came. And as I woke throughout the night and listened, I heard it thrum against the roof. I smiled. For just days earlier, I yogged my plea to Father Sky, asking for rain. Of course, being the ungrateful person I can be, even in my gratitude I ask for more, for we do need more rain in Haywood County.

Yet, this morning as I walk my cove in Killian’s Knob, it is more as it has always been. The creek isn’t as sick and I hear its rush just a bit louder than it has been these past months. The birds and red squirrels are happy, too. And the bare and almost-bare branches of the trees are filled with thousands of rain drops shining from a sun who peeks in and out of the clouds. I say to Sun, “Not yet, for we need more rain.” And I say to the clouds, “Yes, you come. Come filled with rain and let it loose.”

I walk up a little ways and stand at a precipice, and there, I look out over the cove, the valley below, the ridges. My dog and I are still (and as we stand, I think sadly of my old girl and how she would stand nose to air, the wind brushing back her thick coat). The morning sounds are as they should be: Nature and no Man’s Sounds.

The wind pushes against the bones of the tree, and what few leaves are left from a brilliant-colored fall scatter across the sky and cove and to the ground. I walk across hundreds of leaves, some still retaining their color. At one part of the road walk, there is a large crowd of leaves that have landed stem side curled up, and it makes me laugh to see all those stems pointing up to the sky, grouped together like a gathering.

Jake and I stop directly behind our little log house and look down (and I wonder if Jake’s dog-brain thinks “that is my place, down there). I hear our chimes on the porch. I hear the wind through the trees. I hear the creek singing. I hear a bird calling to another bird and the answering call. I hear a squirrel chattering. I hear raindrops falling from the tree’s branches onto a hungry ground. I hear my breathing, soft. I hear Jake’s breathing, soft. All is as it should be in our cove. The sounds of Man have been muffled by nature: by the rains come to replenish the creek; by the wind through the trees; by the tourists going home; by the wishes of a woman who called out to Father Earth and Mother Sky and all the ancients who have come and gone, who like the woman does, love this cove, this area, love these mountains more than any Human could ever love a lover.

Falling for fall by Kat Magendie

My little log house is busy today, busy with being fall. This is Saturday, a few days before you all will read this YOG post, and on the television is the roaring cry of the crowd as they cheer on their team—college football is back in full swing. Tucked in between the roar and the shouts are commercials with beer and trucks and ducks selling insurance. There are men in helmets and uniforms, there is the crowd in their teams’ colors, there is the green field, the popcorn, soft drinks, hotdogs, the referees with their black and white stripes, the sweeping views of the college towns during breaks in the game.

I reach over and press the mute button when a particularly annoying commercial (wait, “annoying commercial” isn’t that an oxymoron?) is on, and there is this perfect fall afternoon happening right outside my screen door. The creek happy with the recent rain, a mother cardinal feeds a very loud and very insistent baby cardinal—I laugh at how he crosses from one side of the feeder to the other, squeak-squawking and shaking his tail feathers in impatience (the mother ignores him, and this makes me smile)—and a wind in the trees blows leaves up and around, the early dried leaves rustling. Here and there orange, red, and yellow tip the leaves on some of the trees in our cove, and there are giant vines that flame scarlet as they wind around, splashing a shot of red within the green. The air smells crisp and if I were to place my nose close to the ground, I’d smell the musty decay of foliage already fallen away. The mornings and evenings have turned cool, and I’ve retrieved my heavier bathrobe. In the little valley below, the city has begun to put up fall decorations: bales of hay, pumpkins, corn, and tall straw bundles. I saw the first Halloween advertisement a few minutes ago.

I am grateful to be sitting here on my couch, right here, right now, listening, watching, smelling the signs of fall. And there’s more to come: leaves will color in the Smokies and inspire art, poetry, song, and prose; there will be apple cider in the little tourist’s shops, first frost will dust the ridges and housetops, and peeking around the corner are the holidays. If spring is about re-birth, fall and then winter is the preparation for regeneration, the resting before the rising. The sleep after a long wake.