Where they built the new interchange,
and overpasses squat on fat haunches,
shouldering their burden of cars that speed along
and away, ignorant of past and future,
the oldest houses of the town once stood,
and heavy oaks touched limbs across the street,
stole the light and water, and the ground
was a fine beaten dust that dirtied socks and gave mothers fits.
And a concrete grave now carries the little brook
that ran behind one of those houses,
where we went to visit a polite white-haired lady,
and while she and Mom drank tea and talked,
I fished with stout thread and a bent pin in water
that was clear…and perfect…and fishless,
and watched the waterstriders
jerking their shadows along the brown bottom.
