Searching For Jack Gilbert (1925-2012) Poem by Michael Waterson

Lordly, locomotive words scattered at last
underfoot, elusive pigeons on Penn Avenue.

Not a fox, but a mutt, a terrier trailing your blood-scent,
sniffing out your heart - infernal confluence
of coal, limestone and rust – that tracks you
down brick alleys, through stubborn tunnels, up inclines,
across steel-girded river spans.

Ages ago I heard you, amazed you made poetry
from Pittsburgh, the pit of my despair where nights burned
dross and dirt to grit and mettle.

You fled to foreign places, impossible homes, carrying the cauldron.
I follow far upriver.