HOMECOMING
Rick Hurley

                        



                Crossing the river into Detroit,

                I am distant, asleep. . .

                                gliding swiftly through channel

                paddle flashing. . . 

                                drifting                

                I cast, watch the fly  arc  lazily  through the air

                spin . . .  plop 

                draw 

                        up

                                the

                                        slack

                                coaxing large-mouth bass

                                into chase

                

                

                The moment passes.

                

                Awakening to dull thrum of engines, 

                I am already beyond the border.

                

                Our trailer-full of canoes hangs suspended in air,

                borne upon steely-spine of bridge

                that clutches both banks.

                Hundreds of feet below churn the dung brown waters

                of a river I cannot name.



                Metallic gleam floods the horizon,

                broken only by waves of heat that creep

                from asphalt.  Amid the throb of traffic,

                gas fumes claw at throat, snake their way

                through bronchi, lung, blood.

                

                I am accustomed  to lake side breeze, woodland

                and creek, my boots clumped with earth.

                This land of concrete and steel is barren of tree,

                is grey, not green.

                This is not my home.





                I am an American who does not know his country,

                who left his land behind on banks of French Canadian River.

                Having found that truth persists in wilderness,

                in the quiet simplicity of stream and crag,

                I am cast into a realm of shadows.

                

                Behold what has become our land:

                

                nothing more than rusty pipes

                clogged with the vomit of industry,

                smokestacks belching funeral-clouds high into sky,

                empty concrete monoliths

                straining their brazen heads

                towards the heavens.