Poems for Workers (Gomez 1925)/Wheatland—A Memory

by Miriam Allen DeFord

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Wheatland—A Memory

By MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD.

Dust—powdery dust—
Dust on the long benches and the rickety chairs of the courtroom—
Dust on the old-time desk with its hanging bulb concealed in an inky blotter—
Dust on the table covered with scabby red oilcloth—
Dust on the two cells downstairs, with their barred doors open to the street—
Dust on the heart of Wheatland—
Dust and cobwebs.
The wide empty street of Wheatland is vacant and quiet as a melancholiac.
Somnolent shops snore by the raised wooden paving.
The tiny hotel is bare and casual.
Dust—dust—dust in the sunlight on the powdery roads,
Dust on the houses with their tired hedges of honeysuckle,
Dust on the apathetic railroad station—
A curse of dust on the town of Wheatland.

The dust is all whispering. . .
It whispers in the drab rutted streets—
It whispers through the torn hanging window-shades of the courtroom—
It whispers over the empty cells with their whitewashed sides scrawled with inscriptions—
("Ten days"—"nine days more"—Kentucky Slim did time here")—
It whispers ominously away off on the wind to the wheat-fields and the hop-fields—
It whispers till the heart is chilled—
It whispers till Ford and Suhr can hear it in Folsom.

A curse of whispering dust on the town of Wheatland!
A curse of sleep on the town of Wheatland!
A curse of hops on the town of Wheatland!
A curse of memories on the town of Wheatland!