♠ Poetry Sketches A to D ♠

Detroit (x) 'by-pass'

[ASR] Every city has cycles of growth and death. Folk fleeing to, fleeing from or just passing by.

♠♠♠♠♠Detroit

(x)

♠♠♠♠♠

They steamed across Lake Erie,
Walked-in-the-Water,
so to speak,
followed the ruts across the mudflats,
by-passed the growing city,
went out west.

My French-blue Catalina
heads the other way.
The traffic speeds by me at 70.
The old 389 keeps the pace
with my racing heart.
I by-pass the dying city.

Wealth came and went
when the banks collapsed in 1840.
Poor men came and stayed
when the factories burgeoned in 1940.
By 2040 what coin was minted here
will be long spent.

America by-passes the Motor City
on the wheels it makes
on the backs of its men.

Kåre Enga

catalogue number: [162.460]
16 Oktober 2005

Notes:

'Walk-in-the-Water' was the name of an early steam ship from Buffalo to Detroit.
'Catalina' refers to my first car, a '60 Pontiac Catalina.