Boom Town

Into any sound important

a snake puts out its tongue;

so at the edge of my home town

every snake listened.

All night those oilwell engines

went talking into the dark;

every beat fell through a snake,

quivering to the end.

This summer, home on a visit,

I walked out late one night;

only one hesitant pump, distant,

was remembering the past.

Often it faltered for breath

to prove how late it was;

the snakes, forgetting away through the grass,

all closed their slim mouths,

WILLIAM STAFFORD