 Robert P. Fitton
Poems
by
Robert P. Fitton
The Erie Canal
Come you children and gather round.
The hearth fire’s a burning so let me expound. About a waterway that was the marvel of mortal men. And opened up the Hudson to the nation’s hinterland. The Bridgewater Canal tugged coal from Manchester to Worsley. The Adirondacks and the Catskills sheltered the Mohawk Valley. Rivers and streams could be engineered into a waterway gem. Mixing the Hudson waters with Erie beyond Niagara’s rim. “ A little short of madness,” Jefferson hollered. In Albany, the governor extracted seven million American dollars. From Rome to Utica they felled the hardwoods and the conifers standing tall. And carved a solid rock aqueduct from Schenectady to Little Falls. The Irish Scots burrowed the earth like moles until swamp fever hit- Where Cayuga empties into the Montezuma Marsh’s mushy pit. Modern marvels did not include modern medicine’s laude. As the dirge sent a thousand men to their final reward. They scalloped the ice swamps downhill to the east in the freeze- Utica to Syracuse in ’20 and Brockport to Albany in ’23. Sixty-Four miles from Watervliet to Champlain to the north. Black powder cut the Niagara Ridge in a single swath. The waters wed Clinton’s dream beyond a simple and common belief. Ten days to New York aboard the Seneca Chief. America, America let your economic engine roar! As mighty as Niagara and the tides on Manhattan’s shore. Packet boats and freight boats formed the American trade From Albany to Erie up a continuous rising grade. Wheat and flour-lumber and whisky were the tonnage weight. T’was the muscles of men and beast moved that freight. No Thruway or highway or misconstrued byway Matched the engineered wonder in those early days. Old DeWitt swore diggin’ that ditch was doin’ right Against the Mohawk and Hudson’s locomotive might. The hoggees drove the boats with horses and mules through Monroe. Trudged down the towpath clay toward Erie and Buffalo. On came the Mormons sailing west and grain traded far and near. Low bridges and high locks- unlocked the western frontier.
June , 2010
 The Parade Has Passed Us By
The parade has passed us by
With beating drums and brass horns that blare.
Flags a wavin’ and a piccolo punctuating the summer air.
There’s push mower at the end of our newly mowed lawn
And once we were on the front porch
All of us-
In our creaky chairs
Never wonderin’ about what we’d wear .
Or what we could or couldn’t do.
We even stood and saluted when those craggy soldiers
came marching through.
The parade has passed us by
We chose to watch the sizzle tube
Until pack man ate us alive.
When a megabyte was out of sight
And a hard drive was
From New York clear cross
the Berkshires to home.
Grandma saw the beauty in the world, alas
She transposed those colored oils in depth as clear as glass.
For Dad, it was an odd and convoluted palate.
Better to live with nothing inside your wallet.
Not to have a gazillion choices but to always try.
By God, the parade has passed us by.
The parade has passed us by
Remember when we’d doddle through town
And smoky leaves signaled autumn was near?
Or dived into Flyaway pond with nothing to fear?
Where are the tadpoles perambulating
From the rising the spring pools?
As we waited at Mrs. Hardinger’s window
as summer’s proclamation closed the Grammar School.
Those slow-paced, hazy days and baseball games.
Those days-
Our days –
The warming breezes now seem so tame.
Wonderment lay at the end of a vanilla ice cream cone.
And growing up meant not living alone.
I hear the thunder of the endless carousel horses
Trampling my relentless, endless youth
Until I ran for cover.
When did we stop living for one another?
I know the days grow short inside your head.
Perhaps, it’s time not to talk the talk.
And simply nix the cracks on the cement walk
I simply opened a long since bolted door
A nickel will buy me baseball cards at the Corner Store.
I heard the band playing inside the gazebo on the green
On a gilded summer’s eve, from that old front porch
I was able to glean
That people then and the people now
are people through and through.
Shut off the noise, turn off the news
and just don’t ask me why.
That parade I love so- will be here by and by.
May 20, 2010
A Requiem for Mister Rodman
Like a paratrooper leaping into the night, the hungry mongrel cuts and bites. Churns and shapes and types the written words just right. This devouring craft is trapped within a torrid, lurid selfish Zone. No antidote or Purple Heart awarded- For those infected by the incessant solitary tone.
Barbegal daily grinded 4.5 tons of flour above the river’s course. Cams and gears and millstones spun by an irrepressible water force. Tis a rare linguistic clarity that punctuates a focused prosaic blend Of Java brew inside the silver Farnsworth tube- Unraveling precisely to the end.
This is a requiem for Mister Rodman, Who submitted with temerity- dexterity for eternal approval. With tenacity, sincerity and a hard-fought valediction. I, above frozen Cayuga, alone, not just approving- But wrapped in silent, humble admiration. January, 2010 http://www.timetravelsciencefiction.com
This Canal This canal, keeper of the wayward tides, Is bridged with spanning silver steel, Railroading trains, And cut by painted bows and keels.
This canal, by night, by day, Has ebbs and eddies, And rock piled jetties To catch the wind-blown, sloshing brine.
Fishermen cast their lines and themselves. They, as I, pretend to reel-in the twine. Oft have I paused, then stopped to behold Forces and people beyond my control.
This canal is singular and alone; The barges and the tugs only passing by. Until the sun returns over the iridescent bay To warm the salt air and commence another day.
March 9, 2004 http://www.timetravelsciencefiction.com
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