transtemporal communique'

                                                   




                                                       


                                                      Progress


 


                             Traveling west from the Mississippi
                               A highway now supplants
                                 The rutted oxen trail.

                           The railroad has straightened the highway;
                              The grain elevators have supplanted
                                 The derelict depot.

                              In front of the ethanol plant
                                   Forty -foot high piles of corn
                                     Have supplanted the grain elevators

                                Giant wind turbines
                                   Have supplanted the windmill
                                       Guarding an abandoned stock tank

                                      The water tower supplying the gas station
                                         And Molly's Cafe and Motel
                                             Squats beneath the cell tower

                            Which massages the brains of all the inhabitants
                              Until they too fall into the black soil
                                   Heaving her breast into the rain.





                                                           Jon Fagerson


















.