Ghosts

Asphalt bubbles punctuate US-12,
prairie expanse stretches blurred amber miles.
State map with square blocked counties can’t capture
the lone tree on the horizon as a
rodent-fattened red-tailed hawk rides thermals.

Who were they, these pioneers? Did their dreams
end in despair of abandonment, the
population trickling away drop by
drop? Lone explorer walks down the remains
of Main Street in Griffin, North Dakota.

A single whitewashed grain elevator
stretches skyward; faint tints of corrosion
faded names of coop farmers long gone.
Milwaukee Road boxcar lacking wheels rusts
near a once busy siding, tracks taken up for scrap.

Now the train from Hettinger steals through town
at three am afraid of waking old souls.

One room school, holed roof showing signs of wear
from last year’s record snowfall, yellowed shades
flutter in the breath of a breeze; chalkboard
bears a math lesson begging to be taught.

Old clapboard church, cross-adorned spire lacking
markings, echoes hymns on the west wind. Were
they Lutherans or Methodists braving
this stark land, strengthened by faith when at last
it too was swept away by plains zephyrs?

Afternoon shadows reach from Montana,
and he laments for their lost histories.
Telephone poles, sun glinting on the wires,
align fading to false infinity;
the wave of solitude overwhelming
the lone hawk’s shrill cry in the dusk twilight.