Scotch broom – Unleashed in Oregon

Annie and I walk most days up a gravel road through an area that used to be all coastal forest. It lies in the airport flight path and was once planned to be a large recreational complex with a golf course, houses and other buildings, but they were never built. Over the years, we have watched big machines rip out the trees and leave sections nearly bare, but the plants always grow back. The rabbits, deer, cougars and snakes return. However, a couple of the old bulldozers remain. I don’t understand this waste of machinery that just sits there and rots, but they are here, slowly falling apart as the forest reclaims its land. Today I share this picture and poem with you.

Captured

Long ago the bulldozers came,

jaws ripping down the pines and Sitka spruce,

merciless tires smashing through

blackberry vines, cow parsnip and buttercups,

leaving a graveyard of sun-bleached trunks

among which the deer could find no food.

Now the hard-hat men work somewhere else,

but they left their big machine behind.

The grass has grown so thick only a rabbit

could run to the rusting steel hulk

to sniff at its cracking leather seat,

its gears, its knobs, a forgotten glove.

Scotch broom surrounds it like a fence,

seed pods rattling against the rails.

Thorny vines wrap around its rotting tires.

Crows perch on the top and shit

while a single purple foxglove plant

dances in front of the deadly jaws.

The A to Z blog challenge is almost done. I’ll be finishing tomorrow at Childless by Marriage. I have also been doing a poem-a-day challenge. Today I am combining the two with this poem about the Scotch Broom that grows wild where Annie and I take our walks. It is considered an invasive plant that should be removed, almost as ubiquitous on the Oregon coast as the wild berries that sprout up everywhere. But I like them. Here’s my poem.

Yellow

Never mind its reputation
for allergy-causing pollen
or its tendency to ravage
every patch of ground it finds
or its upended broom shape
or the way its seed pods rattle
as the wind blows them open,
scattering plants from road to ravine.

Ignore the talk at City Hall
of forming a vigilante group
to tear the unruly intruders out,
guests that no one invited,
that scatter their golden dust like laughter
and wear flowers so gaudy and bright
against the dark widow sky
that they melt the clouds and make it rain.

Stand in fields of Scotch Broom,
bury your face in yellow
and dance, dance as if you are on the sun.

*****
There’s one more day left in the A to Z blog challenge. My posts have been spread among my three blogs, Unleashed in Oregon, Childless by Marriage, and Writer Aid. See the schedule below, and visit Childless by Marriage tomorrow to find out what Z stands for.

Who is Sue?

Author Sue Fagalde Lick is a writer, musician and dog mom living on the Oregon coast. Once upon a time, she was a newspaper editor in Silicon Valley, but she escaped. Now she lives among the trees near the beach. She writes in the mornings, goes on adventures with her dog Annie in the afternoons, and plays music whenever she can.

Her books include Stories Grandma never Told, Childless by Marriage, Shoes Full of Sand, Up Beaver Creek and Gravel Road Ahead. For more about Sue, visit http://www.suelick.com or contact her at sufalick@gmail.com.

Note: All contents copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2023. Do not duplicate or reuse this material without my permission. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that they are clearly identified and link back to the original content.

I am affiliated with the Amazon Associate program, which pays me a small amount when you purchase items via links on my blog.

Category: Scotch broom

A poem from our daily walk: this time the forest won

Y is for . . . Yellow

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