Forage

By Wesley Houp

Consider

how Shawnee

warriors rested

their guns

and passed knowledge of

tall bell flower

(Campanula americana)

to raggedy-ass

James Harrod

when he came

up the Kentucky

in 1774,

crazy-eyed

and yammering

about mammoth tusks.

Makes a tasty green

if picked young

and tender

they indicated.

Follow brother deer,

they indicated.

Try what he tries

they indicated.

Harrod later referred

to it as Shawnee

to settlers down from Ohio

country.

The news spread like Europeans.

When my great

great grandmother

rode an oxcart

up the Kentucky

from Oregon Bend

to High Bridge

in 1890,

she carried

knowledge

of Shawnee as

springtime endeavor

interlocking the great chain

of her mothers.

Fifty years on,

she passed

the information

to my father,

and much later

he showed me

when and how

to pick it.

On the Duck River

one spring

two does watched

as I stuffed rainbows

with fatty bacon,

wrapped them

in Shawnee

and tender dandelions,

and grilled them

on a green hickory switch.

Memory is always the lightest

most consequential

possession

you can take

up any river.