On a rainy late September in the Pacific Northwest
In a theme of whim
Go to Spencer's, buy an umbrella,
Under it open go

Wet sheared grass up slope to the tracks
Next to Esquimalt Road just west
Of the Johnson St. bridge:
There to let the metabolism slow-

Rain shines rails long curves to Northwest,
Stiff umbrels, wild carrot
(Queen Anne's Lace)
Stutter up from thin broad
Ponds to broken asphalt.

Scintilla, glass chips,
Mostly green, some blue--
Certain (or uncertain)
Parties smashed

These mundane constellations,
Drinking wine on idle rusty culvert
Bridge binge! Backs turned

To the nice view
Inner Harbor with its patient giants
Marguerite and Coho
Arriving and departing--

All gladdens me
I observe a long while
And declare a high good
Dark red-brown rust of rail steel
Weeds in flat slums between ties,
Stacks of tarred new ties-
Strong smell, creosote

Discards--cigarette packs, pop cans,
One remaining wall of a defunct warehouse
Flying buttressed with two by fours
Scrapyard, car-piles-
Smashed roofs, windshield crash-
Webs, crunched to rough cubes-
An old crane swinging a large magnet,
Loading trucks-

All that scrapped now-
Blackberry vines barbwire the bank,
And in August stud the sunlands
With scavenger's wild jewels
Albeit be-webbed by spiders when the time grows late
And the berries squish as you try to pluck.

Abandoned warehouse
Southwest of Songhees
Wrecked and gone now too:
Where dry board scent and sunlight slowed
By the gear of dust
Came as angel through the busted panes,
And two sunbathers, nude,
Once upon its hot roof blacktopped.
Gone the prehistoric scrap-steel,
Yellow-painted shovel cab,
Jurassic transmission housings, cable fray-ended,
Steamshovel-buckets of rainwater-

Shake mill torn down-
Now heaps of refuse
Among rock-piles. Broom, blackberry
Bloom still, still fruit
And camouflage discarded plastic
Full garbage bags.

Trains shuttle in the E&N yards--freights assemble.
The Dayliner's metallic cry declared
A word for steamshovels in rain.
I walk
Right up against empty boxcars,
Brown with a dry odor,
Stand still and sniff the fresh wind off the water top.