When Serpents Came: Whiteside Mountain: 1912. (History).(Poem)

 
WHEN SERPENTS CAME 
Whiteside Mountain: 1912 
 
   The truth of what they had seen 
   for most came only later, 
   though the old believers knew 
   it the worst sort of omen 
   that November satinbacks 
   flowed down the face of Whiteside 
   like hellish tears, close behind 
   lashes of flame that drove them 
   from winter rock-lairs toward men 
   digging firebreaks, and to save 
   their farms and families men ...