The Meeting:
Mountain Inn and classic motors.
wooden buildings,
brightly painted;
Clinging high upon the mountain,
creates the backdrop for the meeting.
To meet, to talk, to share the moment.
New friends meet,
and old rekindled;
share the wonder of the moment,
High upon that distant mountain.
The Morning After:
Mountain vista spill through windows,
Lights the room,
and fills our senses;
As morning comes, completes the cycle,
Dusk to dawn forever onward.
Valley views revel their splendor,
Filled with mist,
and last night’s darkness;
Bright rays chase away the shadows,
Dispersing mist, revels it’s secrets.
Black dots threading distant roadways,
Sparkling rivers,
aging steeples;
Plumes of smoke from factories rising,
Born away by swirling breezes.
Broken peaks reveals their secrets,
Endless pines,
each proudly reaching;
For the sunshine, bright renewer,
Dispels the darkness, wakes the forest.
Splendid views of mountain passes,
Rock hewn slopes,
and endless vistas;
Reflects the plan of Natures forces,
Renews the soul, now filled with wonder.
The Parting:
And so we part in new found friendship,
Ever lasting,
held together;
By the splendor and the wonder,
Of having shared these quiet monuments.
We mount our steeds, restart our travels.
Each departs;
divergent byways;
Yet held together ever after,
By these bonds, each soul refreshend.
Authors Note:
This poem is compilation of several ideas, thoughts and impressions from the last year or so. During the last 9 days of Sept. in 2000 I took a motorcycle ride of some 2000 miles. The last part of this trip consisted of the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway that runs for some 460 miles along the top the Blue Ridge Mountains from the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina northward into Virginia and ends at the town of Waynesboro where it connects to Skyline Drive and continues north for another 130 or so miles. Near the southern end around the 330 mile marker (as measured north to south) I discovered a quaint little town called Little Switzerland that sits astride the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina about a half a mile off the Parkway on the eastern slopes of the mountain range. In this town there was a beautiful little mountain inn, very brightly painted in the style of a typical Alpine Inn one might find in the Alps of Europe. I stayed there over night and was taken by the spectacular view from my room’s balcony at the Inn looking eastward from an elevation of some 3500 feet.
Later in the following year of 2001 I returned to the Inn again in the hopes of meeting several other members of the motorcycle “club” I belong to, some who I had meet before and one other that I had only corresponded with but as yet had not met face to face. Having enjoyed my last stay at the Inn so much I thought that it would make a perfect setting for such a meeting and send out a general invitation to have an informal gathering to “trade lies and kick tires” with anyone who cared to join me for an overnight stay at the Inn. While the meeting never took place I none the less decided to write a poem about what I imagined the meeting would have been like had it occurred, and mixed in some impressions that I have carried with me since the first time I stayed there. This then is the result.