“Ruskin and the Smoke Stacks”

by Jack B. Bedell

He saw in the smoke billowing out

of factory chimneys the grinning

maws of gods eager to eat

all forests bare and poison the rivers 

flowing through his countryside

with the pulp spat out. He knew

these factories were built 

less on the land than 

into it and could sense the filth

seeping from the buildings’

bricks into the dirt. There was

no warning he could give

that was not already known—

from this dirt we rose,

and to this dirt we will return.

How lovely would it be

to go to ground with hope

the countryside might remain?

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Bracken, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Cotton Xenomorph, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, and other journals. His most recent collection is Color All Maps New (Mercer University Press, 2021). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.