At an unsteering speed of stoppage, Detourned from straight tracks and wages Into a listless field gone over Mostly to pale thick-blossomed clover, 5 A boxcar keeps still its steel rails Going both ends nowhere in parallel. At the blackness of the door A bandit gathers gold once more, Pulling yellow raspberries 10 From some single spray above the weeds, Reaching the rarewire richness With nimble hands and quickness, Palming sunset tears from thorns; The racoon drinks them one by one. 15 Nothing comes to the rusted hitch Clawing air above a gopher ditch, No iron hand arrives to steer And with knuckled coupling make a pair, To clasp its open mate from the clearing 20 Into a sky of tear-streaked stars Where time would hoist a husky boxcar From its slatted stall and decay To paradise, all the way. Yet in the eye of a ruffed robin, 25 On her hopeful nestful throned within Where the red roof caves in From leakage and mineral rain, Glints a hint of levitation- In her high eye alone it seems 30 A flying boxcar bursts with wings Like eyelashes; below it, everything Lies amiably disordered, Earthbound and solemnly sordid, While heavenly visitors to her nest 35 Feed her safe chicks, and she rests. So much of vision came to eye, and awed. A unpersuaded caw cawed From the litter of the field The hunching crow refused to yield, 40 A black bold spot that picked for trash In weeds gone bright to whiteness. Now only time, for what it's worth Flying still on its changeful path, Turns the structure in its soft clutch 45 Like a moody sleeper back to earth.
From the collection "The Timid Leaper"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.