J.R. Forman
FOLK SONG OF MISSION SAN JOSE
That night the starlight cast
its net across the sand.
Then we left at sunup
on the lower road
that brought us to the mission.
Week by week we heard
the roll call of the dead.
Our sin was not to count
ourselves among the list—
still young and with our names
to come. Their own have since
with age obscured like twilight.
Soon we’ll too depart
this place returning where
the moon lures men with dreams.
Without our names across
the lips of those who tread
these streets will we remain—
or without candles, prayer
or intercession will
our spirits lose their way?
ON THE PLAINS IN OCTOBER
My outpost lingers on the prairie’s edge.
From here the only roads lead east. Why not
compose a song to match the purple martin’s—
the migrant who’ll not suffer stopping here?
I’ll warble empty words to earless winds
and verses to my old Kentucky home.
What tyrant sent me here refrains will tell.
What leaves the plains allow will drift on down.
And when the final line is sung I’ll lift
my eyes to absent friends who’ve flown away
on warmer winds to southern jungles where
I cannot follow. When I’m done and home—
my winters nearly spent—and they return
in springtime—will I wish that I had stayed?
J. R. Forman’s (lecturer, Tarleton State) poetry and translations of Bui Minh Quoc have appeared in Spoon River, Signal Mountain, West Branch, Talking River, The Round, and anthologies by Clemson. He is a graduate of St. John’s College, the University of Dallas, and the University of Salamanca.
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