An Iowan brown

Brown like the shadowed undersides of overpasses,

they flicker: a flock of birds against clouds

of glistering, oil-barrel ashes, clouds

of poured concrete, still drying, like drops

of water from rusted metal, a post-

industrial leap of muscle and friable

bones from earth and electrical wires

to the sky.

In a seemly rush they are flying

away from the blue and deepening blush

of rain.

(And on the same stiffening wind,

a drift of distant cows: a waft

as faraway warm and soft as each mildering

roadside farm, each squat and sagging

building rotting like an unpicked fruit:

a red body sickly sinking to the ground,

its skin giving way, in the "smokeless burning

of decay" -- of time -- to a fine, compostible brown.)

(Found and finished 9 June 2013 while following I-80 from Chicago to Omaha, first via a lovely Y-shaped flock of birds flying north across the highway ahead of a tremendous cloudburst, then remembering the astonishment of a friend -- who had recently driven across the Midwest for the first time -- at the industrial remains of the 'Rust Belt'. The quotation is from Frost, "The Wood-Pile".)