Hauled Away
June 28 2009


The car died
on a country road, near dusk, in its 14th summer.
It bucked once, and was done.

The wrecker came in the morning,
hauling it away to the scrap-yard
no charge,
where it will be reborn
as white hot ingots
of steel.

I wonder if I will go so easy
in useful old age,
no call for crash carts
adrenaline
CPR,
deferring to nature.

I’ll admit, we tried a jump-start.
And I peered under the hood, knowingly;
still, utterly clueless.
If there was a ghost in the machine
it had seeped peacefully away;
perhaps, in that last gasp of steam.
A ton of steel and glass
stranded on a gravel lane,
sagging, lifeless.

They will find my body on a wilderness trail,
no sign of struggle
still fresh enough.
Natural causes, they’ll say
hauling me out for burial.
And 6 feet under
the earth shall reclaim me;
feeding
a small green patch of growth,
warming the ground as I go.