The First to Settle
by Brad Davis
The First to Settle by Brad Davis Silent witnesses here by the will of receding glaciers, among us to remind us our kind came late to these parts. Whether by ice bridge or open water, we are the wandering invasive, some listening to the land as to a life partner, most subduing it, as if the stubborn vassal requires a firm hand. With whom to make common cause? I choose those glacial erratics—constant, methodical, patient of needle drop, leaf fall, snow and winter kill, passersby of every hide and hoof— and I choose too all who, whether by temperament or necessity, pause their ceaseless wandering to honor the elder stones distributed across the lands they, for millennia well before our kind, have overseen. Long is their wisdom how to be observer and participant among the ever-changing— silent, unflappable, first witnesses to the wonder of being here.
Brad Davis (MFA, Vermont College of Fine Arts) is a Canadian currently living in northeastern Connecticut. His poems have appeared in Image, Poetry magazine, The Paris Review, Vallum, JAMA, Puerto del Sol, Brilliant Corners, Spiritus, and many other journals. Brad’s most recent collection is On the Way to Putnam: New, Selected, & Early Poems. His chapbook, Short List of Wonders, won the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and a poem won an AWP Intro Journal Award. braddavispoet.com
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