The wide Missouri parts the ways between me.
Pine trees coat the hills of my snowy view.
Beyond, glass towers were a dream I once pursued.
A winter sky put a lid on the interstate highway.
Dead stalks punched holes where the prairie dogs peeked
And bleak beauty, undisturbed until distant spires blinked.
I loved you, urban litter of every color and name.
In my up-stretched hands your plastic matte transformed
And glinted hope before the specter of the tipping hoard.
When I turned you upside down, I saw a mountain.
When I asked about your origins, you said you were new.
Will one day sublimity shower your snowcap too?
Or will we walk among the shards of our abundance,
Like the poet of a landfill whose tenderness is true
For everything the world exhausts, exhumes,
And expectorates, as though the ancient gasses knew
What would become of their ethereal fondling.
Such a dream! the past, unreal as I imagined it then.
While back home, the wild winds plowed for generations.
And cattle, together, moved like the shadow of a single cloud
When the summer quits its lid and lets the shine down.
