On their modern military watch,
pair of white lines boldly bolts
mutely through high tractless cobalt.
Far below, in synchronized flight,
a flock retreats, sleekly swerving,
follows unseen currents curving.
Automobiles pierce the countryside,
zipping slick and anonymous
along an arrowing asphalt course.
Somewhere there a scruffy boot pair
shuffles a shady creekside trail,
startling skittery frogs, deer and quail.
Urged by the press of redolent scents,
salmon home into pounding showers,
battered while scaling rocky towers.
Crosscutting each small town or large city,
tree-lined streets checker upscale sectors,
leading shaded patrons on paved vectors.
But inner-city kids still walk a bare staccato
of cement blocks queued by vagrant plots
near tenement buildings, vacant parking lots.
first published in Midwest Poetry Review
first published in Midwest Poetry Review
©2001 Bonnie Manion