Wiley Tells the History of Highlander

Used to, you could look off this deck.

and see black cars line the entire edge 

of that wide field below—

the FBI—

because of the carryings on 

of subversive activities 

like quilting, buck dancing,

and Cherokee basket weaving.

Highlander lets SAWC meet here probably

because we write against mountaintop removal

and don’t break anything.

Way back, people for unions

came to learn how to organize.

During the Civil Rights Movement,

Rosa Parks was here.

Martin Luther King Jr.

probably stood on this very spot,

his thoughts fused to these blue mountains—

noble thoughts in mountains still there—

above the black cars directed toward him

like torpedoes.

-Hilda Downer

from Wiley's Last Resort. Hickory:  Redhawk Publications, 2022.