Maypole A La Mode Poem by Jewell Miller

Construction sets a mighty maypole up
Cloud-touching tip, base held in granite cup.

Instead of romping girls and shouting boys,
Damned drilling din and baleful blasting noise.

Not here are roses flung from side to side ...
Hot rivets flash ... showering flame-flakes wide!

No rustic dance invites. A chorus dire
Incites the drunken girders to leap higher;

With Bacchanalian bounds to mount and mount
In monstrous orgies, recking cost nor count.

No pattern here of ribbons, gaily wound!
But steel-hung cables swinging round and round

Deposit pitching beams, with raucous crash,
Where iron teeth crunch steel with bitter gnash.

Behold the pattern! Held by bolt and greave,
Tall perpendiculars arise to cleave

The turgid air. Insane and turbulent,
The mazes of this dance in frenzy spent.

Yet now the eye greets order deified ...
Congealed in stone and steel on every side.

Farewell to sylvan scenes! We know the goad ...
All hail Construction's Maypole, a la mode!