David Sanders Unattended Consequences Root-rutted and boulder-blocked, the road
we took was more a riverbed than road.
Long since behind us, the towns and shopping malls,
the sterile starter mansions, farms, the mobile
homes in stages of impermanence
the mortgaged rich could never comprehend.
Once further in, we hit a logging trail,
or remnants of one. The sun flashed through the leaves
like fish brought up in nets around us. Saplings
whipped the truck and left my arm in welts.
Pointing up ahead, my neighbor asked,
"See that maze of flowers? See the outlines
that they make? A row of houses, right?"
As dutiful as ramparts at a ruin
the flowers lined the walkways that weren’t there
and stitched themselves across the ghosts of porches
before unraveling throughout the weeds.
"Timbermen—who knows when or why—
tried to settle here, built some houses,
then disappeared. Left just the daffodils. . . ."Such curiosities should be passed on
to kin, not just the guy across the street.
But anyone who knew my neighbor’s brood
would be surprised if his small talk displaced
the plans for home improvement or the game
that week as grist for dinner conversation.
Their interest in his "hunting lodge," a cabin
atop a shaded riverbank, was slight
apart from its potential resale value.
In all fairness, though, he chanced to tell me
just because the daffodils were up—
their temporary heads of yellow crepe
both maverick marks and mockery of survival—
the afternoon we saw them in the woods.We drove on to his lodge, locked down last fall
against the elements, cleaned out the leaves,
oiled hinges, swept the floor, and watched
the river for a while before returning.
As I said, he mentioned this in passing
and didn't think about it much himself.
And whether the small community collapsed
under the weight of human needs or else
went up in flames, the dazed inhabitants
clustered around their blazing fate, trampling
the plot where the daffodils had sunk their roots,
was not among the details shared with me.