Page:The Collected Poems of Hart Crane.djvu/19

The last bear, shot drinking in the Dakotas
Loped under wires that span the mountain stream.
Keen instruments, strung to a vast precision
Bind town to town and dream to ticking dream.
But some men take their liquor slow—and count
—Though they’ll confess no rosary nor clue—
The river’s minute by the far brook’s year.
Under a world of whistles, wires and steam
Caboose-like they go ruminating through
Ohio, Indiana—blind baggage—
To Cheyenne tagging… Maybe Kalamazoo.

Time’s rendings, time’s blendings they construe
As final reckonings of fire and snow;
Strange bird-wit, like the elemental gist
Of unwalled winds they offer, singing low
My Old Kentucky Home and Casey Jones,
Some Sunny Day. I heard a road-gang chanting so.
And afterwards, who had a colt’s eyes—one said,
“Jesus! Oh I remember watermelon days!” And sped
High in a cloud of merriment, recalled
“—And when my Aunt Sally Simpson smiled,” he drawled—
“It was almost Louisiana, long ago.”

“There’s no place like Booneville though, Buddy,”
One said, excising a last burr from his vest,
“—For early trouting.” Then peering in the can,
“—But I kept on the tracks.” Possessed, resigned,