Stacker of Wheat

Player with Railroads


Today,
As I watched ten thousand tons
Of 300 million-year-old coal
Creak past on the track
That bisects a hobo camp
And a medium security prison yard,
A finch -- can you believe it? --
Ran straight up the dead oak tree
And into a beaten, gray sky.

Tomorrow,
A thousand bunker rakes
In green Easter bonnets
And a thousand knuckleboom loaders
Slutty in their yellow paint
Will shimmy down the same rails
From the opposite direction
Heading out
For God knows where.

I wonder about
The fine print
In these arrangements.

-- driftglass