POEM
Scavenging the Wall
When fall brought the graders to Atlas Road,
I drove through gray dust thick as a battle
and saw the ditch freshly scattered with gravel.
Leveling, shaving on the bevel, the blade
and fanged scraper had summoned sleepers—
limestone loaves and blue slate, skulls of quartz
not even early freeze had roused. Some rocks
were large as buckets, others just a scone
tumbled up and into light the first time
in ages. Loose, sharp, they were a hazard
to anyone passing. So I gathered
what I could, scooped them into the bed
and trucked my freight away under birdsong
in my own life's autumn. I was eager
to add to the snaggled wall bordering
my single acre, to be safe, to be still
and watch the planet's purposeful turning
behind a cairn of roughly balanced stones.
Uprooted, scarred, weather-gray of bones,
I love their old smell, the familiar unknown.
To be sure this time I know where I belong
I have brought, at last, the vagrant road home.
Source: Poetry (December 2000).
This poem originally appeared in the December 2000 issue of Poetry.
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