I.

Tucked in down the road by the railroad, past cozy log-burning

Five-room bungalos with everlasting Christmas decorations and

Cats skirting yards to the warmth of kitchen doors, Within

Mountains draped in leafy silk; pounded copper and gold leaf.

The contours of the fabric, black and timeless,

a shroud that conceals some great living thing.

 

“Facility to Shut its Doors”

News of Death in mid-air

the thump of falling.

Lay offs. Budget Cuts.

The hardness of the pasture absorbs my weight

like an injured bird, disbelieving its fate.

The green mountains undulate with copper and green and stone,

history’s immortal audience breathes deeply through her ancient pines

 

II.

Dumpster door bangs

The intercom drones, calling students to report for transport.

“But he hasn’t finished his final draft….”

 

The calve’s pen resembles a children’s graveyard

Empty and sequestered-

around which  Kubotas mow in tidy circles- all they know to do

in these last hours.

Their riders, brows furrowed, bodies leaning, still intent not to miss a shard.

 

A hawk on a kite string twirls

And balances in the cloudy September whirlpool

The lesson plan, Friday’s quiz…

Correlative Conjunctions.

Poetry anxiously thrust toward me for approval.

“Are you sad?” they ask. “What will you do?”

They are resilient by necessity, this student body.

 

III.

 

Beyond the forest wall the river roars over crayfish rocks.

The forest breathes depths of sleepy, humid pine and

Night will settle on this place.

The crows will nestle in the oaks.

Glass-eyed bullfrogs,

Waxy box turtles,

Nervous pregnant skunks,

Investigative coons on hind legs

ghostly marble-eyed  possum,

and Goliath beetles…

creep through wet bark and dark holes,

sometimes cuffed by speeding cars . Crickets scream.

We avert our eyes.

“Send all student files down to office.”

Student work is ripped from walls.

 

Orange jumpsuits fill state vans like crated nectarines.

Inmates face sullenly forward

They avert our eyes.

Have already disconnected,

trying to remember the ways to avoid being assaulted

in the showers:

the importance of unspoken codes and feigned nonchalance-

the consequence of fear.

 

 

 

“Experienced Drivers Needed” the trailer reads.

It is white as if just plucked from a factory,

A scrubbed egg

antiseptic,

in stark contrast to our grey-beige motif.

Garishly presented as a Trojan horse,

it waits to invade the last vestiges of  these classrooms

and park them in a lonely lot

to be serenaded by a whining highway,

rocking winter winds

spring hail on the metal roof.

 

I’m in that truck; the book inside the card board box marked, “Text Books,”

compressed in the dark, pages once touched;  pages touching others.

Maybe never again.  At least not this way.

 

IV.

 

Dried leaves flutter and spin

Great shadows cross the mountains

Bears stretch

Wolves howl

Crows converge on treetops

Prisoners relax and stretch on squeaky cots.

Night comes rapidly now with its own space.

 

The rows of well-used dorms and classrooms

Swept empty-best as was possible-

Revealing a time capsule of ancient rubber bands and paperclips

“They didn’t complain- even at the end, these buildings.”

Grass will grow

Shingles will fall.

Roofs will leak-slowly at first, of course.

A creak and bang from an unknown source in Auto

Several bats peer out of hiding spots in the gym

And flex their wings with their toes.

A fly gives up buzzing and dies in a closed window.

The cool September breeze says, “hush,”

While snow silences the peaks of mountains and copperheads

Like the Mayans, evaporated into this piece of time and place.

Wood workings still in progress, unfinished step stools and cabinets,

Rough drafts and half-hewn calculations,

Brickwork drying uselessly to be broken

shoveled into a another landfill of human history.