IN THE DIM HILLS OF PENNSYLVANIA
Originally writ on the back and front of a ratty old envelope my wife dragged out of the bottom of her bag for me during a bus trip through Pennsylvania. We stopped at a rest station, one of those Government Works Project type things off the interstate. I don't know how far it might date back, but it was this big chunk of concrete and brick, lodged in the hillside like a wad of shrapnel between the ribs of a Civil War Veteran. The poem originally began "I would have thought this place destroyed by now," was followed by some of the lines about pre-cast concrete and Atlas, and I had the last 12 lines down hard right then and there (except that the word "Chortling" was originally "Lurking"). After I got it home and played with it a bit it turned into a VERY negative piece about how rotten things are up north. That didn't get good reviews from my crack team of poetry experts, so I went back to the drawing board. I scribbled notes on it for about a month, and then finally the right starting lines jumped out at me (they were originally about three-quarters of the way in), and the rest of the thing just fell into place. Voila! Another Existential Travelogue, supplied for your viewing pleasure!