Heedful of William Carlos Williams
Up the street from my boyhood home
is the western portal of a Delaware, Lackawanna
and Western Railroad tunnel –
One of the shortest on record,
it ends at the west bank of the Oswego River,
four blocks away.
For a six year old boy, that is the measure
of a railroad tunnel, and to trespass it alone,
the measure of daring –
And the triumph of wonder over wisdom.
Just as its maw exerts force in daylight, at night,
the rhythm track of my green mind is laid:
Clickety clack clickety clack clickety clack
clickety clack clickety clack clickety clack
clickety clack clickety clack clickety clack clickety
The sound of Pennsylvania mountains,
in chunks, now in New York, to become
steam, then power for our Philco sets,
Which display, in crystal clarity, Roy Cohn
as he counsels Joe McCarthy, how to deepen
the trench that splits America, still.
Dave Read