Morning in America

Look down
and see how the valley wakes.

Beneath these rolling ridges,
dark houses steam and cluster
into tight, thin streets,
the morning mist
softly washing
ranks of backyard fences
into spectral smudges
between still, red
autumnal trees.

The city begins again
after its long, November night;
cars and trucks flow
into highways, slowly
edging east into west,
and complete at last
the long, twisted
continental path,
from sea
to trackless
sea

rolling to the dry limit
of the broad Pacific
where no lines restrict and
no heights give a wider view.

They come at last
to the concrete terminus
of America.