Earth Day Story

I remember the dusty floorboards of wood in the streetcar Of the Minneapolis Street Railway Company And the varnished yellow banquettes of tight-knit rattan Worn smooth by decades of passengers The worn gleaming brass grips at the corners of the seats And the motorman’s little bell Windows trembling in their casings as we crossed the avenue Liberty dimes falling softly into the steel-rimmed hour glass The gnarled hand of the motorman near. My grandmother arranged herself against the seat Her back as straight as a soldier’s beside me Her navy hat with velvet band And net veil down making her head seem distant, Her dreaming smile and the patient Roman nose, A repose so deep; from my place I watched her when we rode like princes Rattling past traffic stopped on the granite cobbles Riding downtown together, my hands in hers; All that so much That I love yet but feel no sadness for, that Time crossed out like the trolley tracks taken up Or entombed under the pliant blacktop of the modernized.