Creeks wriggle alongside the highway
incidental, like--
oh yes,
someone used to wade there.
And a knot of deformed trees,
almost too old fashioned
hints of a farm, like discontinued merchandise
out of stock.
But it's mostly lost streams.
Weed trees, and a loneliness that hints
of automatic two-car garage doors and zoyossa grass.
Small well kept lawns and sudden streets,
and identical houses around a factory that sprawls
the way small colleges used to spread themselves out.
Lawns, flowerbeds, grounds-men with mowing machines.
The quiet authority of culture.
Ruth Stone
This poem, along with her poems
'Entente', 'Weathering', and 'Lines'
appear in the Poetry Journal PGI #5
