Spoon River Revisited: John Dickey

There’s something about late fall that always takes me back to Spoon River, and the thought of what Edgar Lee Masters would write today.

Maybe something like this. Only better.

John Dickey

On the bus, I wondered
what this place looked like before It needed buses.
Were there reeds on the dunes on Lake Michigan?
Were there places a man could go
and not hear even the slightest murmur of traffic?
Or the grumble of minds weary of bus seats?
Were there people who walked slowly?
Were there people who cared
whether John Dickey were alive?
And how did they kill themselves
Without buses to walk in front of?
They tell me Chicago means
“The smell of wild onions.”
But sir, if that’s true today,
wild onions must smell like buses.