The Overpass

You know how you

will be looking for somewhere

and come by surprise to a long cement bridge

sailing out over a wide

cement ditch carved deep into a hill

between whose banks the traffic is rushing

in both directions

in what is now the air above it

there was once a pasture

beside dark woods

I saw it

and a swamp near the first trees

with a pump house hidden

in low green blackberry bushes

and mist coming off the upland marsh

first thing in the morning

and on the cold hill

a man and a boy

planting potatoes

with a mule keeping ahead of them

climbing the furrows

through the morning smelling of

wet grass

none of them seeing

the white bird flying over