JR Forman - Two poems

 
 

 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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