Driving Gap Creek Road
by Wilson Roberts
I wind along the creek toward
the high peaks of North Carolina;
8.2 miles of country road, into a life
I stopped living in 1968.
More churches line the road today
than when I drove Gap Creek
pursuing love on Stony Creek. Perhaps
there is more sin; the world is darker.
Eight churches and a barn, Yes Jesus Yes
bright yellow letters six feet high, narrow
twisting blacktop, no shoulders, deep ditches
on either side. Six flowered white crosses
mark the deaths of speeders, drunks,
the self involved, passing warning signs
posted by the State, signs of salvation
raised by Primitive, Free Will, Southern and
Zion Baptists, the Assemblies of God,
Churches of Christ and Christian Churches: Don’t
Wait for the Hearse to Take You to Church.
Speed Limit 45. Be Fishers of Men,
You Catch ‘em, We Clean ‘em. Hidden
Driveway. Atheists Have No Invisible
Means of Support. Sharp Turn. Spring
into Christ. God Knows. Jesus Does Save.
Caution. Hell Is Real. Stop Ahead.
Doublewides and small brick houses
with large lawns shelter the faithful.
Knuckles tight, I round a sharp bend,
swerve to avoid a wrecker pulling a blue
Chevy Malibu from the gully
across from Gap Creek Christian
Church, New Sermons all summer; No Reruns,
its windshield flopping like the tongue of a
hanged man longing for water.
Hope and despair
line this country way leading to
high mountain hollers where the life I did
not live remains a vivid memory.
Warnings, death, promises of eternal
life, line 8.2 miles of blacktop,
Johnson City, behind me,
the gravel roads of Watauga County ahead.
There I shall walk in the shadows of
those never born, those long since gone, music
of banjos, fiddles and guitars rising
above the pines and oaks,
dissipating like wood smoke from
a chimney I never finished building
in a high country holler where I never lived.
graphic: Memory, mixed media by Jeannette Harris, Jonesborough TN
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Wilson Roberts is a retired Greenfield Community College MA professor of English Literature, Folklore and Creative Writing, who has also been Department Chair in those disciplines, a union organizer, and a storyteller as well as an author of fiction and poetry. His recently published novel, 'The Cold Dark Heart of the World, is available for purchase through Amazon. Read a review of it at recorder.com. He devotes his leisure time now to writing, travel, family and environs on the eastern end of the Appalachian region and also works as a court-certified mediator in small claims and juvenile courts with families whose kids have been taken by the state. His goal for the Mediation Training Collaborative effort is to reunite families whenever possible. He's also been a musician (guitar) and songwriter for many years.
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