Warren Falcon (04/23/52 - xxxx / Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA)

for Lida Harris

Then died there the rose beside the house of tin.

The track bore no train for years.
Weeds travel tendriled and
yellow rooted between trestles.
Broken vessels whistle through
shattered teeth of glass.
Only wind and no rusted train will pass.

Though the scene bears dislocation,
though the brain remembers station and motion
of steam engine and iron wheel rotation
the places of old gone passing
bear no malice toward stillness.
All around mute remains remind the
occasional passer of former days;

an old snuff tin crumbled in a reverent hand
longs for the woman grasping then,
holds sweet dust beneath her tongue
as the land must hold her now where is
no whisper but sleep beyond sleep.

Weeds to the eye are sad between rails
but listening to their green and yellow belles
the rightness of their swaying displaces all sorrow.
Their distance is a distance one cannot know
but only borrow in imagination by extension
of miles, their reach is ours then, translated
green and longing, their leaves throng the
evening air, in silent clamor fling down seed
to summer's blundering prayer.