Robert S. King
Recycling
Along the old logging road
there are more fossils than trees:
petrified tire tracks, aluminum cans
full of rainwater, styrofoam
caskets the land never buried,
bones too broken to identify the species.
The wind stirs voices of ghosts
who can never leave this abandoned road,
this rough, long scar on the face of earth.
There is the faint odor
of diesel and sweat on sawdust.
The breeze going in circles here
is too weak to carry
the human scent away.
Turning the Page
While you nap, I sneak my scrapbook
into secret woods where only the trees look
over my shoulder at stories and pictures
I would never allow the light of legacy.
An elder oak has my back
as I lean back to read from the beginning
to near the end of my time.
Only the wind followed me here
to stir fallen leaves, turn pages
of blurred ink and faded photos,
a stream of haunts
who would remember me too well,
a choir of conscience
who would tell you too much.
Let it be me they tell so much.
Let whispers on breezes
tell me what may be written
on the last empty page
where my nervous pen hovers
before it goes down.
