for millennia, southern appalachia has experienced a fire cycle, a steady wash of char and ash and death followed by furious growth and renewal. this cycle was encouraged by indigenous people such as the yuchi and cherokee, letting small fires rage from river to river.
(there are no natural lakes in east tennessee. those only came when the united states needed a place to flood to build the atomic bomb)
these strips of burned land made way for oak savannah, for canebrake, for long grassy meadows and balds picked clean by wood bison and elk kept to the ridgelines by red wolves and grey wolves. dead trees and weaker understory growth were cleared out by these fires, leaving behind a food forest for man and animal alike-- raspberry, blackberry, persimmon, cherry, pecan, blueberry, mushrooms of all types-- morels, chicken of the woods, oysters.
now the tourists play in bloated dead waters, and people go hungry on once bountiful slopes clogged with hazardous dry brush. the forest struggles to breathe, its once fast-flowing arteries clogged and its life-giving fire snuffed out.
Mountain Laurel Blossoms
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