john davis / two poems

Forest Service Road

One barn at a time. This one abandoned gray.

Wind is the only gesture that keeps it standing.

Mice have found a warmer home, and the apple tree

beside it that threatened to die, has died.

Boys, because they were boys, ate apples,

then broke the windows with apple cores.

The boys now live in rest homes. Weeds are their only

lovers. They will be the green that grows beside graves.

One day moon. One fence. One sky at a time.

This road curves like the elbow joint

of the farmer who gave his sweat to the hayfield

that now blazes yellow with goldenrod.

It wasn’t grim religion that killed him.

His well ran dry. Thirst consumed him. Birds

sang mourning songs before he passed. We hear

the songs and drive by.

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Stopping on Highway 101

Forgive the Scotch Broom. The yellow blooms

     only want to liven up the gray, and soil welcomes

wind that hums through shrubs. Bees bumble.

     Drivers on their way home, smile naughty smiles.

Clouds are useless as promise. This white

     is the white of Santa’s beard. His sleigh never stops

here. If it did, the toys he would leave would be

     shadows and pebbles for worms.

With no warning, chainsaws leveled this slope.

     No one wonders if a tree falls in the forest, will 

anyone hear. There is no forest anymore. 

     Scotch broom petals are the flowers beside stump graves.

Log trucks grunge their gears, grind morning

     into echoes. You can let your grief out here

the way you would a dog—run sadness 

     out of breath, come back panting, happy.

Warm in your car, you punch it to cruise

     control. Ahead, a grove of fir trees leans

like daughters in green dresses. Expect laughter.

     Whatever is sad has danced away.

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John Davis is the author of Gigs, Guard the Dead, and The Reservist. His work has appeared in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and Terrain.org. He lives on an island in the Salish Sea and performs in several bands.