As I walked this morning, I thought of this on-going mention of
pokeweed, garden scourge and food source, both. This had me thinking
of other unsavory plants. And as a person living in the South
virtually all of my life, I thought of kudzu. I suppose anyone who
has spent even a small amount of time in the South will know what
kudzu is. A vine-y, leafy, interloper, of sorts, brought to the South
sometime in the early 1900s. Kudzu is a native of China where I
believe it behaves itself fairly well. The thinking was that by
establishing it here, kudzu would check erosion of our clay soil and
it would provide food for grazing cattle. Nice theory. As it turned
out, cattle had no interest in kudzu as a food source. Nothing else
wanted to eat kudzu either, though kudzu likes eating all sorts of
things like roads, houses and trees. Drive through less suburban
parts of this region and you will find vast fields of kudzu taking
over entire stands of pine. Though I know it is a terribly
destructive plant, highly invasive, I've always loved the spontaneous
sculptures it creates when over-taking trees. Giant dinosaurs and
dragons and whatever else the imaginative eye can see appear, like
spontaneous topiary. I've heard that its roots grow to a depth of 12
feet which means it never really dies off during the winter. These
deep roots also make it nearly impossible to eradicate, at least
mechanically. You can't really dig it up unless you have something
heavy duty. Something like heavy yellow equipment—bulldozers or back
hoes. Be still my heart. Another kind of fantasy altogether that is,
operating heavy yellow equipment.

But what does any of this have to do with temple mounds, you quite
reasonably wonder? Thinking about kudzu (among other things), I
arrived home from my walk and noticed the temple mounds in my
driveway. There is an irregular crack in my driveway, perhaps a dozen
feet long. And all along it are tiny temple mounds. I suppose they
could also be described as tiny volcanoes, but each and every one was
animated with the activity of tiny ants. I don't think of volcanoes
as being a source of activity of anything other than the geological
sort. I decided these were worth spending some time looking at more
closely, with a sense of leisure. So I went inside and brewed one of
my favorite aromas, poured it into the League of Silent Flight cup
and parked myself alongside the series of temple mounds.

There are at least fifteen of these mounds. And for some reason known
so far only to the ants and not to myself, there is an order to their
arrangement. At the farthest ends of the crack, the mounds are almost
flat, barely any dome at all. As the mounds come to the mid-point on
the line, the mounds are tallest.

None of these mounds were here at all two days ago. The rain had
beaten them down. But ants are undaunted by such things and had
simply set to work re-building. The mound with the most activity was
different from all the rest. It had been built with a ramp, a shallow
roadway that went to the top. A constant stream of ants came and went
by way of this ramp. Ants disappeared into the hole in the center,
empty-handed (more accurately, empty-mandibled). And ants emerged
carrying single grains of red dirt which they carried and placed. I
suppose there was some thought as to where they placed each piece as
it didn't appear to be random. Since concrete driveways are usually
poured to a thickness of several inches, I imagine that the ants have
(relative to an ant size) quite a little trek to make down to the red
earth below. Red clay isn't at all granular so I found myself also
imagining that the ants somehow process earth because the visible
mounds are made of tiny grains that appear uniform in size and
texture—not at all clay-like anymore.

All of this work had me thinking, too, of the human equivalent. Of
temple mounds created by the native people original to this area.
Throughout the South, there are the remains of mound-building
cultures that once lived and flourished here. My father first
introduced me to some of these mounds when I was a child. He took us
to Etowah, remains of a mound-building culture outside of Atlanta.
His affection for these earthworks grew out of both his Cherokee
origins and the Spiro mound near where he grew up in Oklahoma. Since
being introduced to mounds as a child, I've visited as many mound
complexes as I've been able to in my wanderings through the
Southeast. Kolomoki, Ocmulgee, and Poverty Point in addition to
Etowah.

These mounds were the work of a culture that was remarkably well
established until the arrival of Europeans. Hmmm...European kudzu
which eventually took over and swallowed these cultures. The remnants
are there, preserved in some of the mounds themselves and in the
names of physical features, rivers and lakes. I like the sounds those
remnants make in my own mind—Conasauga, Chattahoochee, Ocmulgee,
Chatuga—to mention but a few.

And what of the mounds themselves? What makes these piles of earth so
special to me? Part of my affection grows from my father's desire to
pass along the appreciation of these earthworks. There is some
knowledge about how these mounds were constructed which I also
appreciate—one basket full of earth at a time. Carried by hand,
placed and trampled into place. Even the baskets used for this work
represent significant work, of reeds and grasses harvested and bent
and woven. Basketful by basketful, earthen mounds grew. A little
like the temple mounds in my driveway being created by the ants.

These earthworks were created for a variety of reasons: for burial,
for ceremony and, in the case of the low mounds at Poverty Point,
they were the basis of housing. There is also, at Poverty Point, a
mound shaped like a bird. It is now covered with trees but at one
time, that bird mound was without trees, standing on part of the
flood plain of the Mississippi River, marking a point along bird
migratory routes.

What appeals to me most about the mounds, though, is the sense of
connection I feel to something unnamed and ancient. I've visited
mounds in the oppressive heat of summer. I've been to them on colder
days, too. I've been to some at sunset and others on days when the
only breeze you could feel, the only stirring of air there was, was
atop the tallest of the mounds. This last experience was at the
tallest of the mound complex at Ocmulgee. Standing on top as I was, I
realized I was above the tree line. Horizon in all directions. This
view of the horizon meant that I was on top of an open, living
observatory. No doubt there were many reasons for such structures to
have been built long ago. And among those reasons, I feel certain,
was the capacity to chart and observe celestial events.

As I have been writing this, the Thunder Boys have been at work
tearing open the sky, spilling its contents on earth. Invisible
spirits move the trees which whisper in response and light has gone
into temporary hiding. Shadow begins to rule, and forms itself
mysteriously beneath and among the leafy canopy. I am reminded of my
visit to the Kolomoki mounds—torrential down pour, fox squirrels (so
large and with black faces, that I believed at first they were small
wild monkeys) clambering up and down the trunks of trees decorated
with Spanish moss. I felt ancient that day, in the rain. I felt
grounded and timeless. Connected to these unknown others, creators of
earthworks.

The line of temple mounds in my driveway have all been washed away
now, another ant epoch come and gone. It didn't take long in so much
rain. Diligent little beings that they are, they will, no doubt, have
rebuilt their complex in another couple of days. I think of ants all
over the world, busy with their work, with the materials at hand. And
I think of ancient people, wonder if they too watched ants building
temple mounds and became inspired to move the earth themselves,
creating their own complex on what must have seemed at that time to
be a vast earth pinned at the edges to an ever-changing expanse of
sky.