A Walk Along the Old Tracks

    abandoned for years

    overgrown with sumac and sour apple，

    the iron scrapped， the wood long

    gone for other things.

    In summer my father would send us along them

    to fetch the cows from the back pasture，

    a long walk to a far off place it seemed

    for boys so young. Lost again for a moment

    in that simple place，

    I fling apples from a stick and look for snakes

    in the gullies. There is

    a music to the past， the sweet tones

    of perfect octaves

    even though we know it was never so.

    My father had to sell the farm in that near perfect time

    and once old Al Shott killed a six foot rattler on the tracks.

    "And when the trolly was running" he said， "you could jump

    her as she went by and ride all the way to Cleveland，

    and oh，" he said， "what a time you could have there."