The Last Spike Poem by Lone Dog

Foreword: In 1854, the Antelope arrived in Windsor, Ontario signaling the completion of the Great Western Railroad. In 1990, in a ceremony on the waterfront, the last spike was removed from the tracks to make way for the Riverfront Development Project. The last spike now rests in the Office of the Mayor of Windsor.

Clang! Clang! Clang!
Two sledges swung
In sunlit arcs
As they alternately drove
The last steel spike
Into the resisting tie.
Down the tracks to the East,
First, a high-pitched
Screaming whistle,
Then, a gargoyle
Of blackened soot and smoke
From a funneled stack.
She came;
Huffing, chugging, hissing!
The Antelope;
Brass fittings flashing
In the distance.
She came boldly,
Spewing a baptism of scalding steam
Over the gleaming but complaining rails.
She came on the route
Of the Great Western,
Laden with both commerce and industry,
With new people and new dreams.
She came to make a village
Into a town, into a city.
Now, down the tracks to the East,
No high-pitched screaming whistle.
No gargoyle of blackened soot and
Smoke from a funneled stack,
But silent rusting rails
Stretching to the lonely horizon;
Rails lying lifeless and loose
Upon their weary ties
Save for one last spike.
Suddenly, two muscled men appear.
They place a crowbar
Beneath its scarred and battered head
And pry.
It balks and groans in resentment
As it is slowly but stubbornly torn
From its grip
Upon the resisting tie plate.
Then, with a final complaint,
It is wrested from its burrow
In the tie.

The last spike -
Wrested unwillingly from a tie
To become a treasured symbol
Of a day that's done.