Читать книгу Pruning Burning Bushes - Sarah M. Wells - Страница 14
ОглавлениеJunction
There is no el train in Auburn, no steady rumble
like thunder on a summer afternoon. Suburbans
honk and veer behind my neighbor’s combine,
pass, speed up to the light, line up at four-ways
for permission to turn. The Cleveland and Eastern
Interurban used to pass through here,
the Maple Leaf Route curved slow through Newbury
to Amish country, carrying produce and passengers
in to the big city to see a show at the Hippodrome.
Today, the maples shiver along the upraised curve
as if a train has just passed through, but it is only me
or the wind. I do not hear the click-clack on the raised track,
the crowd of travelers standing in the woods waiting
for the junction’s switch to take them north or further west.
Now the forest and road are silent; last season’s leaves
crunch beneath my feet. Syrup drips from its spile
into cold, steel buckets. A car swings south down
Munn Road, wondering at the slope in the woods
and then the thought is gone. The sun rolls steady on its track
across the blue, though I’m the one who’s moving—I
and the farmer and the Suburban and the earth composting
beneath my feet, faster than these fleeting minutes.
How slow the shift in shadows. How soon
I’m surprised to be chilled in the late afternoon.