There were borders
Between civilization and wilderness
Back then

And the wilderness
Was not a tame thing
Experienced from inside
Rolling metal fortresses

Wagons were wooden
And open
And we hadn’t tamed the wild enough
To give us the leisure
To feel guilty about it from
Within safe walls

And Main Street was not yet
The Main Street of Sinclair Lewis’s time
After 40 years of technological revolution
Had reshaped the world

The pride of construction
Done in the local community
By the local community
Forming a local community

But within a world simultaneously
Complicated beyond our understanding
And limited beyond our memory