Vinegar Light in the Tennessee Rise

Mountains coil like old fiddles left on cedar shelves
not smoky, not rolling, but bristle-backed and half awake.
A susurrus seeps into rock veins,
glistening like vinegar dripped on chipped crockery,
sour-sweet, unraveling the morning.

At twilight, the ridges murmur with half-remembered jokes,
tasting of green apple bark and burned sugar crisp,
a swirl of primordial lullabies that never quite resolve.
Listen for the sideways cough of foxes
scurrying up slopes dotted with wild fractal blooms
Old men call them “hitchhiker flowers” with petals shaped like question marks.

Where the frost nips at pine needles
(their resin singing tiny sermons to the star-hungry sky),
rivers gargle hidden spoons, argentine-clinking in stony throats,
spitting vowels back to the wind.
And the boulders, gnarled knuckles punching through thick soil
keep watch with gritted patience.

In this place,
even the nothing crackles with some leftover electricity,
as if thunder forgot its suitcase and is coming back
any minute now, eager to hum one last tune.

Breathe in the copper-laced air
that teaches old songs a fresh refrain.
Here, in the cusp of silent reverberation,
the mountains stand guard like tall tales too real to doubt,
holding their own secrets so tightly
you can almost hear them laughing.