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Scavenging the Wall

By R. T. Smith b. 1947

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).

Biography

Poet R.T. (Rod) Smith was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Georgia and North Carolina. He earned a BA in philosophy from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and an MA in English from Appalachian State University. His collections of poetry include From the High Dive (1983), The Cardinal Heart (1991), Hunter-Gatherer (1996), Trespasser: Poems (1996), Split the Lark: Selected Poems (1999), Messenger (2001), Brightwood . . .

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