Poles Poem by r james sterzinger

Two block from the church
it stands arms held out from
itself, a slow mist falling.


This electrical phone high-line pole...
stands circled in sidewalk cement
next to the old railroad trestle, that is crumbling.




The trestle still has its use
cars caring timber, from the mills
in the north, oil tankers from the Dakotas.


This pole's a yardstick of measured time
(its and the world's) , counting the hours
and the days by the inching of shadows that seldom fail.


Time is the only thing reliable
it wears out shoes and souls
indiscriminately, it lays no claim to contrition.


One day is not like the next to the pole.
in its body it carries its markings
such as did Golgotha's cross, and Christ Himself.


These nails, once hammered in with deliberate,
intent have become hundreds upon hundreds
from garage sales that seem unimportant now.


These nails mark the time of families whose
children's clothes have been out grown, or the goods
of couples who were downsized into nursing- homes.


Couples who are gone now,
the dead have no use for things
once they are gone to what awaits everything.


Nothing of criminal pretense
can be ascertained by the posting of sales
on the hard- wood body of this pole.


These hundreds of nails that will not
be removed are only that markings
of that true criminal: time.


Time who makes yesterday's children
the elderly, it makes me miss my parents
and my wife her father on this Memorial Day.


The signs have blown away, the nails remain
reminding me this moment of the passing
of time and the sins I commit indiscriminately.


Being indifferent to the passing of days
and of loved ones, may be sin, but all is mercurial,
Arriving at church, I hurry in, I need to question God on something.

rjs