The Corridor

Hog Heaven to Three Forks,
you go through the corridor,
between the hills, along
Paradise
Creek.  It's a name,
something pop press and
real estate likes:
an ink, pulp handle, muddy
as spring water during
runoff.
Titles hold little of what is
there.
Between Hallows Eve and
the snows
of Solstice, the prairie grass
is color of straw.
It covers black earth by the
stream
wandering across the
boarder.
Rusted rails of an iron road
use the flood plain also.
Cottonwoods have lost all
but a few yellow leaves,
ruddy whips on dark
skinned trunks.
Rouge of the last storm
touches far counties in the East;
West rim can be seen clear.
Hawks hunt the corridor,
hover on the wind.
They eat their mice
on telephone poles, fence
posts.
When snow falls, it covers
the machine in the gravel
quarries.
When it falls deep enough;
they shut down.
The machines have lights
so they can see at night,
grind away, grind away.
Except for a small diversion,
the highway follows the
water.
There's a road cut through
one mound.  They finally
planted
some seedlings to fight
the angle of repose.
This hallway doesn't run
straight to an ending,
and name makes it easy
to ignore, the corridor.

               published in ADmart, Moscow, ID, June 18, 1998.
               This poem took a 2nd place in the paper's poetry contest for that year.