Few men remember their names any more,
Or could say what job they were meant to do.
The farmers who could own them weren’t poor,
And sat on them with pride when they were new.
For years these implements, burnished with rust,
Could be seen abandoned everywhere,
Behind old barns or at the edge of fields.
What did they once do? Harrow, raise and thrust
Soil aside, thresh, reap, seed, or flay land bare?
What were these dead contraptions richest yields?
Today they’re posed on front lawns like sculpture,
Humbler remnants of Ozymandias,
The disintegration of ideas
In an unrecognizable future.
