Maggie Valley

by Peter Finch

Maggie Valley, Haywood County, pop 648, home of
Raymond Fairchild, half–Cherokee banjo picker,
says so at the city limits. Sun glints from the
chrome of Kawasaki and Harley Electra Glide,
grey–haired leather bikers with fat wives, no one
smoking. Every bluegrass act that comes on stage
is proud of the Lord and ain’t afraid to say.
Jesus gets more of a cheer than Doc Watson.
The pensioner in an electric cart next to me,
breathing through a mask, says son, this is the real
music, Bobby Osborne’s high nasal soaring
Kentucky. You don’t get that where you
come from. No sir. No alcohol policy strictly enforced.
Green earth is enough. Suited like Mormons
but for the snakeskin shoes Quicksilver
sing acapella that makes your neck hair rise.
Crone in a white hat with feather dances
a bluegrass shuffle on a two foot board
brought for the purpose. Ralph Stanley
76 sings about death but no one dies.
Cross, banjo, mandolin, boiled peanuts,
moonshine, cross. Y’all come back.
This is God’s country. 5000 feet up.
Near enough.