Mosse Road

For years it was simply
The Road
Like most roads around here
There were no names
Folks navigated by neighbor
And common knowledge

As for this place
That was easy
If you knew where the old schoolhouse was
Or where Jack Geyer lived
You could find this place

Everyone knew Jack Geyer
And some folks
Including my own father
Had attended the little one room schoolhouse
On the corner

Up the hill
The last and only home on the road
Before it ceases to be maintained
In winter

The last utility pole on the line
Stands on my front lawn

Two and a half miles
And two thousand acres
Of both state and privately owned
Wilderness
Lay between here
And where the snowplow
Again dares to venture

Not towns only
Can disappear
When economics, politics
Clash with our existence

Ghost farms
Inhabit these hills
Ghost roads connect them
Casualties of prohibition
And the great depression

The farms the roads
The people
All but forgotten

Sometime in the early seventies
A man came and assigned a number
To this house
The numbers were pinned
To a big topographic map
Down at the fire station

A fire number
For the first time in over fifty years
This house had something like an address
1440 Roseboom Township

And so it remained
Until sometime in the early nineties
“911 emergency services” was implemented
This required everyone to have a street address
Which meant the roads
Needed to have names

A survey of town
County and state records
Revealed that some of the roads
Did indeed not have names
But also that many
Did

Some roads
Like the one across the hilltop
Escaped the attention
Of the new 911 order
They now remain nameless
And do not appear on any map

Mosse Road
Was our road known
Of old
A ghost name
So it remains
A reminder
We are not newcomers here

Names were found
For those roads in need
A new number found
To designate this place

On Mosse Road