The Poet Becomes One of the Shovels

So all day long it was iron,

Tron against the snowfall,

Iron losing but iron gallant,

Tron, iron, iron!

And shivering there in the duskfall

At the peak of the white tohu-bohu

I knew by the clank of my footfall

That I, of a flesh with the loser,

Had turned perforce into iron,

Glad iron! but even in iron

Had carried the human along,

And this, alas, was my downfall!

For though the verbs of my kneecaps

Rang, shovel-fierce, loud on the snowfall

In this white world newly created

I suffered peculiar pangs

That were not yet peculiar to iron,

And I fell straight in love with a streetcar

Who, not understanding this man-fall,

Went pushing and paying attention

To a doddering old truck!

Structure

21 lines · 5 stanzas