Stone and Timber

On a day when gusts tear spouting
from plastic siding and papers scatter
from a torn trash bag like confetti,
the old stone home stands impervious.
Windows stare at the denuded land,
with only the slightest quiver of pale panes.

The gray stone walls last longer
than the good luck in the crock pot
full of pork and sauerkraut,
with orange slices, garlic cloves, and bay leaves.
The Amish mortar, the agricultural rhythm,
the save-then-spend economy, the girls
in dresses at the auction furnishing
their homes for their new husbands
with old, dark wood and upholstery
thick and coarse as the farmer's hands,
outlast the industrial grid torn down
for the new civic blight: malls and parking lots.

I look with romance through the upper windows
flooded with the white light of stainless fixtures
of the factory still making cups and plates
at twelve o'clock at night.
I love the clanking wheels, arms, and cogs,
the whining belts, and the hissing pumps:
machines watched by men and women
wearing gray pants and shirts.

The college, the hospital, and the city
work together to tear down the floor products
plant and the metal bearings factory
to make way for more wings and fields and dorms.
I must remember the rusting freight trains
and the coal cars that block the road
for fifteen minutes while unbelted, unrestrained
children on their backs in the stationwagon
hatch muse time, or gray clouds, or the sound
of metal wheels and couplings that creak
and threaten to fracture, like the unsteady marriage. 
There is much to learn waiting for coal to cross.