Springtime in poetry

For Laurie McDowell, our 2026 Steve Kemp writer in residence, coming to the Smokies is like coming home. Since graduating from high school in Asheville, North Carolina, McDowell has pursued a career in conservation while also nurturing his proclivity for exploring the world through drawing and poetry.

McDowell recently concluded the first of three two-week stays that will comprise his residency. Throughout the year, we’ll share his poems and illustrations here.

His poem “the quilt” offers a unique perspective on the annual celebration of spring in the Smokies. Appearing alongside it is a drawing showing one of the many quilt squares of this diverse patchwork: an Eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly perching on a mayapple, which grows next to a blooming yellow trillium while a West Virginia white butterfly drinks from a woodland phlox.

the quilt

eventually,
the someone who rests each winter
on the floor of every valley
and in the crack of every hollow
begins to walk and hum,
like honey melting ice
on the valley floor.

she hums welcome in a duet
with the southern sound of green
that breaks you down out of memory
as she hums
to the first trees waking
and first waters trickling.

she hums on
to buds swelling,
to stretches and pops,
she hums notes that bounce
from limb to limb carried on warm wind
here there and back again
across the valley floor.

as she packs her rested things she hums
a little louder so the echoes carry
a little farther until her hum drops

wide open into a voice like that honey
amber-gold and speckled with stars
in the sun.

no one needs the instructions
but everyone follows the conductor
keeping time
at the foot of the symphony.

bringing the distant heat
of white coals
on frozen fingers,
she sets off
and up,
singing spring back home
up the inseam of those hollows,
to the foot of every bald
and birthplace of every creek
as green creeps up
and up from the valley floor.

with patient steps she pulls the patched quilt
of emerald, sage, olive, and ochre up
and over the hills
to bring spring
finally

rising up the mountainside.

Header photo: Laurie McDowell leans in to examine a wildflower along Kephart Prong Trail. Photo by Holly Kays.