Elin Babcock Rust: Delicate Unwanted Beauty

Rust: Delicate Unwanted Beauty                   

You harvested iron from the earth
Formed it in your image
Polished it. Cleaned it. Oiled it.
Plowed with it. Drove it. Discarded it.

On old ringed cans void of paper labels
Between nuts and bolts
I form crevice brown and tan lines.

On the locks, chained gates
And silent, still, emptiness
Of abandoned factories and mills
I work to return iron to the earth.

Dropped on fields and shores
Barrels, chambers, bullets
On bayonets, ramrods, triggers
And helmets that failed to protect
I work among the battlefields.

In ships at sea and dry docked
I bubble on deck railings and hulls
On tall masts and port hole window rims
I seep under layers of gray paint.

I am red, brown, yellow ochre
Flaky, mottled, pitted
I reclaim what you left behind
Bring it home
From fields, junk yards and deserts
Iron to rust to dust.
Delicate unwanted beauty.

© Elin Babcock. All rights reserved.