Clouds Over Sole Street* Poem by Neil Young

Our brooding, blue-grey visage slowly moves.
Below us, telegraphs, whose bronze wires thread
Their pensive silence, stitched from pole to pole,
Await the tickle conversation makes;
Language forgotten, whose signals, once thawed,
Will burn across our atmosphere grown pale.

The roads below lixiviated crawl,
Anticipate our movements, measured, calm.
We shadow them, their soothed, anointed skin.
Our meditations deepen as we roll;
As endless journeys on the land they claim,
So we possess the sky as dull as stone.

Vast orchards rooted in dark earth outspread
In reverential symmetry. They grow,
While we, the giants roaming god-like, play,
Observe them pious, petrified, despaired;
Their brittle fingers, stone like, bleached and grey;
Their knuckled prayers rise upward to implore.

Above the station we make our advances.
Worn platforms wear dark pools. Their old rains serve
As mirrors, mimic our approach, reflect
The moment our release is passed. Like voices,
Our notes of falling rain connect, dissolve.
Our songs flow out in rings, distort, refract.

Two figures pace the platform, disregard
Us, staring down convergent lines that run
On endlessly. Each sleeper measures miles
And minutes, their muted metal rails glide
Numb-mouthed. They shine with our increasing rain,
While poplars hush, anticipate our moves.