Old Stagecoach

I  came upon it almost hidden in the grass,
leaning against bluff, amongst fallen boulders,
prideful and wizened in the fading sunlight, easy 
to see how it once thundered plains, prairies.

The boy who drove it is dead, no longer
dreaming of the new town at the next stop,
no longer seeing wonder in the buffalo dusting
all around him, knowing the herd on wheel-time.

It no longer feels the river swiftly forded,  but the shining pools left by the rain, the winter snows,
summer heat, spring blossoms and fallen fruit-
the new passengers that travel through in silence