Helen, Alps in Appalachia

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
You, black rubber ring, patched with gray tape from last summer's rocks,
picked up at Cool River Tubing on Edelweiss Strasse,
I hold you close, inflated just enough to carry me down the Chattahoochee.
Headwaters trickle cold, 55 degrees even in July,
starting small in Unicoi State Park, 2000 feet up,
where John Kollock, born 1929, sketched Bavarian dreams after Germany.
He saw this dying lumber town, population dropping to 298 by 1970,
and painted facades on gas stations, wood grain over pumps,
faux half-timbered walls rising like a joke on the Appalachians.

[Chorus]
Float with me, old tube, on this river that remade itself,
from sawmill dust to Oktoberfest lights strung at dusk.
We bump over slick stones, laughter echoing at 5 PM shadows,
carrying the weight of reinvention, sticky lager spills from 1970 tents.
Pete Hodkinson in his restaurant, serving bratwurst charred over pits,
sauerkraut tang mixing with pine crisp air.
You hold me buoyant, intimate curve against my skin,
as Helen pretends Alps, longest-running fest in the states.

[Verse 2]
Remember the ordinance, every building forced Alpine,
even the Hansel & Gretel Candy Kitchen with its sugar-dusted pretzels.
Mid-July afternoons, we launch at the bridge,
water bracing my thighs, sun warming the patches on your side.
Feral echoes of Cherokee long removed, unspoken in the archives,
but the river flows anyway, headwaters pure and unrelenting.
Kollock's quote lingers: potential for something different,
like you, tube, salvaged from decline, floating us toward evening dances.

[Bridge]
Cool autumn mornings, 50 degrees at sunrise in early October,
funnel cakes frying sweet, powder sugar clouds,
polka bands with accordions wheezing oompah under the Festhalle roof.
We tube no more then, but the river whispers of transformations,
from lumber ghosts to this Bavarian mirage in Georgia hills.

[Outro]
You, my tube, rest now by the bank,
carrying stories of 1969, the year Helen woke up foreign.
Float on, intimate vessel, through the trembling earth.