Abandoned Conestoga
This wagon is done with the trails and the rocks’ inimical outcry
Under the iron wheels; the rivers that thwarted its path;
The parapets of wind; the sands where the slow snakes lie
Drowsed in sulphurous slumber: done with the invigorate wrath
Of forests black with rain; of swamps in the fluctuant meadow:
Done with the spring and its song, the wavewise prairies aglow
With flowering laughter ; the summer, dark with the mountain shadow ;
The autumnal deserts of flame; the winter-deep valley of snow...
Done with ponderous harvest, the long way to woodlot and mill;
Abandoned to scurrilous weeds, the insatiate teeth of the rust;
Tunneled by blundering worms, broken of axle and thill;