*see our editor’s note at bottom
~
Dreaming to Updated Mountain Songs
The sul tasto transports me
from shining hall to cabin.
In the mist, the air is cool,
the leaves flutter glissandi,
scattering crystalline drops,
alarmed at the coming storm.
Bump and scurry of guitar—
a possum on the roof? White,
like the chestnut trees in flower,
column on column, marching.
Looking at the firelight shining
on the cabin’s polished wood,
I dream of a concert hall
where I dream of a fire.
The flames are not orange hair.
There is no parade of tanks.
White flowers cover raped hills.
Melodies dance, unblighted.
~
Editor’s note:
“Mountain Songs” isn’t exactly a genre, but encapsulates all old Appalachian music which has its roots in the English/Irish/Scottish tradition. Before bluegrass, before country— I’d call it folk music at its most authentic. Think songs like “Wayfaring Stranger” or “St. James Infirmary”—or “And Am I Born to Die” written in 1763 by Charles Wesley, performed here in an Appalachian style by Doc Watson and Gaither Carlton, and here in a more modern arrangement by Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn. Identifying the piece of music as an ‘updated’ mountain song places us in time: after WWII when that music came to be popular, respected and performed in grand venues.
In “Dreaming to Updated Mountain Songs” the narrator begins in a concert hall listening to modern versions of old songs when they are transported by the “sul tasto” (a method of playing that gives the violin or fiddle a more angelic feel) to a cabin in a dreamlike state. The poem juxtaposes the image of the “shining hall”—I imagine it to be ostentatious—with this dimly lit and more cozy, intimate venue for the music to be played in, where it was arguably most natural. To the people who love authentic old music, the idea of it being played in a “shining hall” is anathema—yet, at the same time, they do want it to be recognized—this paradox is core to the poem’s wonderful effect.
-Carson Pytell
Lorna Wood is a violinist and writer in Auburn, Alabama, with a Ph.D. in English from Yale. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the 2020 Great Weather for MEDIA anthology, Leaves of Loquat V (2nd prize, Loquat Festival poetry contest), Poetry South (2018 Pushcart nominee), and Luminous Echoes (poems shortlisted for Into the Void’s 2016 poetry contest), among others. In 2019 she was long listed for the Erbacce Prize. She has also published fiction, creative nonfiction, and scholarly essays, and she is Senior Editor of Gemini Magazine. Her Amazon author page is at amazon.com/author/lornawood.