The Big Dipper

Embedded in Black Walnut trees,
the wooden serpentine of its pinnacle
poked at the sky in 1971. Before
it was torn down, rusty blue rails
for long lines leaned against a century of winds.
The parking lot scarred with cracks
tracked purple Bull Thistles peeking through
the bent fence where wild eyes would wait
for the last click before the big drop.
It was the must go to place in summer.
That amusement mania has scattered forever
across the red hills, fallen down the Grand Canyon,
washed to the Pacific, where wild rides last for only so long,
white-foamed waves at the shore, come and gone.