Panel text reads:
Black Mountain Landscape
Swannanoa river
in a groove through the rocks
where barefeet feel the smooth
the light green river
sucks itself
water hair
milk hair
pulse and curl
in the flood plain
rows of corn
in scoured clay
hardly sweet enough to raise a decent weed
since the skin-thin sheath of leaf mold
leached away
only where loggers couldn’t get ‘em
cling the oak & beech, thicker by higher
huge shields of twigging
where sap is moving
vegetable abundance
out of dirt
as acid as an acorn
the valley rises and thins out
its up-end curing like the handle of a spoon
pancake clouds splotch across the valley floor
and rivers of light
spill past the sign for Stuckey’s Pee Cans
following the bent road
where the farm boys park
gulp beer
and dream of beating city women.
Martha King
From Weather
New York: New Rivers Press, 1978
Black Mountain Landscape
Swannanoa river
in a groove through the rocks
where barefeet feel the smooth
the light green river
sucks itself
water hair
milk hair
pulse and curl
in the flood plain
rows of corn
in scoured clay
hardly sweet enough to raise a decent weed
since the skin-thin sheath of leaf mold
leached away
only where loggers couldn’t get ‘em
cling the oak & beech, thicker by higher
huge shields of twigging
where sap is moving
vegetable abundance
out of dirt
as acid as an acorn
the valley rises and thins out
its up-end curing like the handle of a spoon
pancake clouds splotch across the valley floor
and rivers of light
spill past the sign for Stuckey’s Pee Cans
following the bent road
where the farm boys park
gulp beer
and dream of beating city women.
Martha King
From Weather
New York: New Rivers Press, 1978
Artwork: 1995.43.1
Swannanoa River
This work was created for the 1995 exhibition Remembering Black Mountain College curated by Mary Emma Harris in conjunction with Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the BMC alumni reunion organized by Mary Holden Thompson, founding director of BMCM+AC.
24 x 18 inches
In copyright
Gift of Martha King
Martha King, Swannanoa River in Weather, 1995. Printed ink on foam board. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Gift of the artist.
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