Daily the cortege of crumpled
defunct cars
goes by by the lasagna-
layered flatbed
truckload: hardtop
reverting to tar smudge,
wax shine antiqued to crusted
winepress smear,
windshield battered to
intact ice-tint, a rarity
fresh from the Pleistocene.
I like it; privately
I find esthetic
satisfaction in these
ceremonial removals
from the category of
received ideas
to regions where pigeons’
svelte smoke-velvet
limousines, taxiing
in whirligigs, reclaim
a parking lot,
and the bag-laden
hermit woman, disencumbered
of a greater incubus,
the crush of unexamined
attitudes, stoutly
follows her routine,
mining the mountainsides
of our daily refuse
for artifacts: subversive
re-establishing
with each arcane
trash-basket dig
the pleasures of the ruined.
Amy Clampitt, (born June 15, 1920, New Providence, Iowa, U.S.—died Sept. 10, 1994, Lenox, Mass.), American modernist poet and prose author whose work won critical acclaim for its evocation of the natural world.