This is a place on the way after the distances <br /> can no longer be kept straight here in this dark corner <br />of the barn a mound of wheels has convened along <br /> raveling courses to stop in a single moment <br />and lie down as still as the chariots of the Pharaohs <br /> some in pairs that rolled as one over the same roads <br />to the end and never touched each other until they <br /> arrived here some that broke by themselves and were left <br />until they could be repaired some that went only <br /> to occasions before my time and some that have spun <br />across other countries through uncounted summers <br /> now they go all the way back together the tall <br />cobweb-hung models of galaxies in their rings <br /> of rust leaning against the stone hail from Rene's <br />manure cart the year he wanted to store them here <br /> because there was nobody left who could make them like that <br />in case he should need them and there are the carriage wheels <br /> that Merot said would be worth a lot some day <br />and the rim of the spare from bald Bleret's green Samson <br /> that rose like Borobudur out of the high grass <br />behind the old house by the river where he stuffed <br /> mattresses in the morning sunlight and the hens <br />scavenged around his shoes in the days when the black <br /> top-hat sedan still towered outside Sandeau's cow barn <br />with velvet upholstery and sconces for flowers and room <br /> for two calves instead of the back seat when their time came<br /><br />William Stanley Merwin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/vehicles/
