Joseph Hardy

Let the chugging clock stop.
Let the puritanical
little engine that could
slow to a standstill.

Let the hill be too tall
for ambition, and the need
to get over it
dwindle to a whisper.

Let the stoked boilers cool
panting after labor
and hot iron tick
into silence

and silence pervade

and the sky
become too wide and blue
to be endured.

Then let errant wasps find the idled spaces
and dandelions open
and the wild grass grow
through the segmented wheels.

And let undivided time in
and old age, and the constant
dying in life to enter,
to start again.