by William Greenway
We’re new from the south to find
winter, the empty steel mills, even
in full sun, silhouettes, shadows
on the snow, of pyramids, Mayan
ruins, broken towers. Brown grass
brims in rusted buckets
like a drink. Tracks of coal
trains, ladders thrown
down. Southern winters
bleed in the rain. Here,
sheets cover the nude
corpse. Just to the
north Crane and Patchen
were born, to the south,
Wright, all dead too soon.
In spring we want to see
the glaze of land crack
like an egg, clouds
sluice from the sky like
silt from a creek, ruts of snow-
cold water, silver
rails, take invisible
things away, across ocher
fields, into dark woods.
William Greenway was the author of over ten collections of poetry, including The Accidental Garden (WordTech Communications, 2014); Everywhere at Once (University of Akron Press, 2008), winner of the 2009 Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award; and Ascending Order (University of Akron Press, 2003), winner of the 2004 Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award. His honors include the Helen and Laura Krout Poetry Award, the Larry Levis Editors’ Prize from the Missouri Review, and a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, among others.