Only the Forest Remembers
Only the forest remembers
and us.
The sturdy, low boughs
held us in our youth
as we climbed.
The upper twigs swayed
and bent in the wind.
From the tops,
through leaves and clouds,
the sailboats shined
on silver waters.
Waters running from
Chicago to Alpena,
Detroit to Montreal.
The waters follow that highway
of sorrow and forgetfulness,
Mackinac to Mobile,
Timbuktu to Shangri-La.
Only the forest remembers
the broken shale.
Knee deep shards
lined the gulch
carved by ancient ice and snow.
When the glaciers receded
and the Pleiades fell
to sandy shoreline solitude,
when sumac burned crimson,
vermillion, jasper before
November’s gale,
before Friday nights at Curtis Field,
water and wind worked their magic
and the Devonian hexagons
bleached in the drought
of August.
Only the forest remembers
and those warm midnight stars.
We found Sagittarius
in the eastern sky
and The Dipper’s double glow.
Ptolemy knew the archer
was thirsty.
Ptolemy knew when
the hunt was lost.
And with that J. C. Penny telescope,
we knew the lunar mountains.
Shadows cast ‘cross craters
and across benighted minds
of childhood’s fancy.
With astral projection,
we never looked back.
Only the forest remembers
those long days
spent as mountain men, trappers,
and Allied soldiers
slinking across enemy lines
to blow ammo dumps
and liberate France.
Each broken branch a Winchester
or an M1 Garand.
Each of us, Lee Marvin or John Wayne.
“Say your prayers,
you Gerry bastards!”
we called wading through trout lilies
and barberry thorns.
“We have you in
our sights!”
Only the forest remembers
and us.
Those long, lazy afternoons
biking through the trees.
Catching air off exposed roots,
we soared like harriers.
Rounding embankments
with no hands.
“Look ma!” we called to no avail.
Parents weren’t watching.
Our summers remained
unsupervised,
remained free.
They’d call us for dinner;
we’d run home for tacos
or hamburgs and hotdids
before returning to the woods
to live out grandiose lives
until bedtime called
to us again.
Andre F. Peltier (he/him) is a Pushcart and two time Best of the Net nominated poet and a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he teaches literature and writing. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI, with his wife and children. His poetry has recently appeared in various publications both online and in print. His poetry collections Poplandia and Ambassador Bridge are available from Alien Buddha, and his collection Trouble on the Escarpment is available from Back Room Poetry. He has another collection forthcoming in 2024: Petoskey Stones from Finishing Line Press. In his free time, he obsesses over soccer and comic books. www.andrefpeltier.com
Twitter: @aandrefpeltier
Image: RomanKahler, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
