Pennsylvania

I have been in Pennsylvania,
 In the Monongahela and the Hocking Valleys.

 In the blue Susquehanna
 On a Saturday morning
 I saw the mounted constabulary go by,
 I saw boys playing marbles.
 Spring and the hills laughed.

 And in places
 Along the Appalachian chain,
 I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,
 And I saw the white-cauliflower faces
 Of miners’ wives waiting for the men to come home from the day’s work.

 I made color studies in crimson and violet
 Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.

Published in Smoke and Steel

Tags:

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.