Some Answer

God once cut a river through my mind
flowed it ever deep from rock to grassy side.
There swelled
some seasons silt, mud throughout—rogue logs,
tin cans, trash tires and metal scrap downstream,
rusting main street store fronts, another year washed out.

John Henry laid a straight line track in the heart
dressed me denim flannel and hand-placed
my eternal sledge.
Even Thomas would smirk over these calloused palms
not rough enough, no blood. Another steel year lost
to weary bones, weakened dreams of beating those machines.

You chanters then paved my road soul smooth,
laid sweet hell along the river, beside the track,
tried to chisel fire
to temper want of words, first in life, next in love,
and someday, sometime may prove too grievy in tears, some sleep,
and all self will seem transported somewhere, somehow, away.