GHOST TOWNS OF ONTARIO

Suggestive cinders.

The abandoned husks of old grist mills.

Railway tracks barely visible

overgrown with loosestrife, dandelion, milkweed.

Dirt roads speckled with fool’s gold,

sun-baked skin of garter snake.

The rusted bells chime silently:

Bennies Corners, Bogart, Cape Rich –

poltergeist of past labours

earthy arias of churlish voices

frustrated and broken by lost markets.

A vine-conquered general store

keeps vigil over the sarcophagus

of the blacksmith’s shop

while blackflies and mosquitoes swarm thick

near the stagnant pond.

Desolation’s progress

cheerfully celebrated

by the racket of summer birds

the trilling of grasshoppers.