Well, even with my mind thus occupied,
I’ve managed to make decent progress down,
and now the road has brought me just outside
the remnants of an ancient human town.
These places make me nervous, even when
I’m near my home, surrounded by my own.
In there I might find squirmy little men,
and I’m in hostile country all alone.
To make things worse, it’s starting to get dark.
I need a spot somewhere to spend the night.
If I can’t find a safer place to park,
I’ll die ere dawn, though it be just from fright.
There’s one thing that would make my day complete,
and there it is, about a mile ahead:
some five or six machines, right in the street,
but not the one I seek. I fear she’s dead.
Alive or dead, I know not whither gone.
I must protect myself and then decide
if I should stop, retreat, or carry on.
This heap of rocks affords a place to hide.
As I approach it from across the pike,
I see it is not made of stones at all,
but manufactured items, all alike.
They are rectangular and very small.
Protruding here and there throughout the mass
are rusted rods that could have been support
for walls, and there’s a piece of broken glass.
This must have been a structure of some sort.
©2010 Louis A. Merrimac
Little men: Stop that squirming! I can’t speak for my fellow readers, but I don’t find it difficult to imagine myself appearing wormlike to a very large metal creature.
Protruding rods: Hint: We’re supposed to hold this image of a pile of concrete with reinforcement rods all through the rest of this canto and most of the next one.
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