I

All day the wagons have gone by
In a great cloud of dust on the highway,
The horses plodding with down-hung heads,
The harness clanking dully,
Or sometimes jingling with little bells.
The drivers sit immobile on the great iron pipes
Like stolid images dressed in coarse cottons
With dusty hats pulled low, shading dull unseeing eyes.
A wheel jolts cruelly in a deep rut,
The dust swirls in a choking fog,
But the driver sits unmoved, staring ahead.
All day the wagons pass in a long dust-enveloped line.

II

Sunset with the derricks standing stark
Against the skyline.
Grim sentinels, black and cruel,
Against the golden splendor of the west.
Row upon row they stand,
Scarring the soft bosom of the prairie,
Silhouettes of wealth and toil and service,
Stark against the scarlet glory of the skyline.

III

At night the rough unpainted shacks are crowded
With a pushing, jostling, coarse humanity,
Eager to spend.
The gambling hall is brilliant with mirrored lights.
The plank floors creak beneath the muddy-booted feet;
An officer of the law leans against the door
And hears the click of the dice, the whir of the wheel,
Unheeding.
Painted women, nakedly dressed, eye every man
From under half-closed purple-tinted lids.
In a drug store a reeling loafer drinks raw gin
Handed boldly across the counter.
The blare of a saxophone
Syncopates through the open window of a dance hall.
The people surge through the streets pushing each other,
Hurrying from one plank shack to another,
Eager to spend.