4. Pennsylvania

I HAVE been in Pennsylvania,

In the Monongahela and the Hocking Valleys.

In the blue Susquehanna

On a Saturday morning

I saw the mounted constabulary go by,

I saw boys playing marbles.

Spring and the hills laughed.

And in places

Along the Appalachian chain,

I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,

And I saw the white-cauliflower faces

Of miners’ wives waiting for the men to come home from the day’s work.

I made color studies in crimson and violet

Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.