Dead cedars, yellow pine
roll off the mountain
on trucks, great rounds felled
after drought
down a narrow road
to be ground
into toothpicks, I’m told.
Under the leaky flume
on the Middle Fork,
a Kenworth edged
the ’57 Ford wagon full
of kids and groceries
to a stop, red bark
dripping, hanging like hair—
we held our breath.
Breaking black silence,
a diesel rumbles upcanyon
at four, piggyback, phallic
trailer tongue angled up,
pointing to Eshom
as headlights pass,
to remove the last
witnesses
to Ghost Dances past.
Nice poem. There is something about this logging truck poem that stirs the past, Snyder’s log truck poems do the same. Now I will have an ” Ear Worm” for the rest of the day… the pop and rattle sound of Jake Brakes echoing across a canyon and down the Central Camp Road.
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Cool! Thank you.
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Memories of the past rush to mind. I lost one of my best friends when a logging truck lost it’s load on a curve and landed on my friends car, killing all aboard.
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