Sometimes I wonder if land can hold memories of troubled pasts.

Today felt strangely foreboding as we hiked across the sandstone cliffs of the Southern Cumberland plateau. It didn’t help when, to both our surprise, the trail opened up to a 700 ft cliff with a cave gushing spring flood water in the basin.

We scrambled down the trail until we got to the cave entrance, and had lunch there. Jackson and I both kept eyeing the cave entrance with a strange feeling of uneasiness.

The woods were so still today in the misting rain, and in 5 hours we didn’t see anyone. There are days I can’t help but thinking the land itself is mourning a deep separation that it doesn’t have words to explain, and all who wander through its swollen creeks and under its wet canopy can’t help but feel it, too.