Why They Turned Back/Why They Went On

Because a black bird flew across the road; Because the attendant at the pump turned surly; Because the uncertain weather Made Mother nervous, And, back home, the telephone kept ringing In an empty house; Because a white bird flew across the road. How far had they come? How far did they go? Seeing, along river after river, Between shores of brush and willow, Only the bend ahead and the bend behind Under a sky featureless and hard As a shallow bowl; through tautologies Of a landscape unendingly repeated Mile after mile; down Main Street After Main Street, replications Of the same petty civic scenery; Hearing the ghosts of trains Crossing between cornfields, Clattering over the points, moaning Above creosote and cinders, As if the imagination Could produce nothing more Than the same landscape, cornfields, Rivers, and Main Streets Pulling them, like a magnet, not toward But away from , not into the future, But away from the past; Until a white bird flew across the road With its mysterious message, that said to some, “Turn back,” and to the rest, “Go on.”