ALONG THE WARE RIVER



Along the Ware River,
   a tomb of stunned
              silence enclosed by
          great granite 

blocks, its weave shop 
          empty, clattering 
                     long done,  spindle
    rooms quiet as cotton, with only

the earth rotating below, armies of mill
     hands, ghosts upon generations
            of ghosts, gone! Weavers
         gone! Spinners, gone!

Slubberhands, gone! An old
         mill on a tired river, but
                  the Thorndike Mill keeps
              the shuttles flying

on the looms
       of memory.


After passing by the 
century-old, abandoned mill,
Palmer, Mass.
June 2004
    

All written material © Bill Schechter, 2016
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