I felt a poem stirring.
Images woke me, rustling about,
knocking things over, bickering
among themselves. A loud bang or two,
like horses kicking their stall doors
on a brisk morning, eager to run.

I took them for a walk.
We tried a cobbled side street.
Sooty brick, storefronts, the bronze
and streaked marble of a little bank
chartered in prosperity, housing now
a window cleaning company.

Then a city park. Statues. The river walk.
In the long curve of the brown Ohio
a tow of twelve coal barges.

Late in the afternoon
I climbed a railroad embankment
and caught my breath.
The roadbed glistened,
crushed granite of every hue.
The steel rails were golden arrows
straight and true to the vanishing point
placed by the artist just below
the setting sun.