Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Boom Town


Boom Town


Into any sound important
a snake puts out its tongue;
so at the edge of my hometown
every snake listened.

And all night those oil well engines
went talking into the dark;
every beat fell through a snake,
quivering to the end.

This summer, home on a visit,
I walked out late one night;
only one hesitant pump, distant,
was remembering the past.

Often it faltered for breath
to prove how late it was;
the snakes, forgetting away
through the grass,
had all closed their slim mouths.


William Stafford

Posted over on William Stafford Archives

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