Along the Way

Salt marshes, shopping cart graveyard,
Voracious mudslides suffocating tilt pour houses.
Rolling steel wheels halt only long enough to view
Richmond plastics:
Splintered windows, ghostly shades,
Gutted, burnt out interior, still recognizable by
Stubborn Brick, charred and miserable but
Ever defiant against despair.

We all jumped off that train,
Slept in the decayed monastery,
Felt spiritual awakenings.
In the presence of
An ecological wasteland.
Salt marshes offered renewal.
Never to come back,
Never to wash hands in
Motionless, gray-green pools,
Water looking like the remains of flotsam jetsam;
We linked minds in a moment of satisfaction,
A minute of resolution, an eternity of hope.

The 21st century’s a
Long way from Yasgur’s farm;
I want to tell Joni,
There is no “garden” to which we may return—
No “stardust golden” among oil refineries in
Pittsburgh, California.