Capturing blueberries on the woodline,
deep in railway valleys‒
in rusty fields.
Placing quarters on steel rails
squashed by roaring locomotives.
Tacking hide on smokehouse bricks,
with care forever.
Forgetting beauteous fields
within white winters,
where you saunter in childhood.
Toiling away in factories,
because they rose up.
The sky was grassy hilltops and
fat trees alone in fields.
Smoking pots and boxes
rose on our horizon,
like dragons,
serpents of the Old World
come to burn the New.
Capturing bramble weeds in thin woodline,
deep in crowded railway valleys
and rusty chain fence.
Placing quarters on metal tables‒
our shining scraps taken for rent.
Tacking hide on smokehouse walls,
is tacking eviction notice on that great big smokestack
in the distance.
Forgetting fields of simple, joyful labor
not in winters
of childhood,
but forever.
Remembering for every second
cages of smog
in the sunset.
Paul Brooks Balkan is a poet based in the Vermont area.