Blue Ridge Fall

Reflections of life in a small southern town in autumn

 They come here in October
 like barn swallows
 plumed in blue scarves
 flying in black Mercedes 
 on their yearly migration
 to locations south.
  
 In the winter,
 the locals are out;
 pickup trucks and sedans
 smolder along back roads
 empty of strangers
 though they pass through
 on interstates 
 craning their necks 
 out windows onto the fringes
 of our world.
  
 For three seasons
 we gather at churches 
 and meeting halls 
 in our little town
 without fanfare.
 Yet there are signs
 of the invasion
 on billboards 
 and on brochures
 advertising to tourists.
 The difficult fate
 of the rural town. 

 A cappucino
 maker appeared 
 one day in the local
 gas station 
 beside the cash register.
  
 When the trees show
 their first tinge of copper coinage 
 the maples and oaks burst forth
 in their fiery protest
 flaming their final breaths.

 Then the strangers
 clot the roads
 drifting by in their
 waxy black cars
 having stolen the wind
 from the north.
 Leaving footprints on private land,
 the oil of imported cars
 permeates the mountain air. 



~Rae Carpenter