Chicken Feed On The Fortymile Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

I spent one summer on the Fortymile
not far from Chicken in Alaska

dredging with outboard motor
rigged to a device that sucked up
sand and dirt from river bottom

a coffee can of that summer
work sits on a shelf in the garage

to separate particles of gold
from black sand and soil
requires centrifugal force
which would yield chicken feed
small return for huge expense

poets and prospectors alike
scratch in the soil for simile
and metaphor but often
recover bits and pieces
tattered remnants of grand
potential unrealized
in reality

poets keep undigested
experience in notebooks
and failing memory
much as prospectors
keep black sand
in coffee cans
on forgotten shelves

chicken feed
minute specks of gold
in line and verse
can excite
like the gleam
of gold
in coffee can