I Wish I'd Had A One Room Shack Poem by Rich Harney

I wish I'd had a one room shack
in the mountains looking
o'r the hills uncomplaining,
instead of a pale view of the city
that only iron men and smoke in furnaces
found pretty.

The green boughs and lean woods,
The dappled deer at their gain.
In a red wood house, not large
Peering out the window pane.

The white snow at midnight straining to hear,
The black all ‘round and the flirting of owls
Hoo hoo!
The morning's icy crack, the sun on time,
And the hare's lamentations.
And the grey of it, the grey bright and young,
And the swallows dipping down
ever dipping till dun.

Then the summer, forget the spring
that stops to fast uncaring for me,
with it's brief meadow, whippoorwills flute
I'm just here in the wind
Toot toot!

The pond's melting dash of lily pad and toad
To sing a summer chorus brave and full
All tree and woodland in and bug in whole hearted throat,
And dray go by with ripe apples spilling,
It's god's plenty
spoilt down yonder road.

I dwell in the city dazzling,
Elbows of tired souls leaning out windows clamoring for breath.
The stench of poverty leaning it's hunger over meat stands
toppling over with so much need.

The steel clanging high in measures of cloud
Higher than the morning fog
and there, men that fall a hundred stories taking a nap,
the high gold treasures will do just that.
Everywhere the shove and sigh, not getting, overstepping,

I will take the wood,
though I dream not as I should —
What could I make of the emerald city?
A recollects all,
What a dog gone pity.