Alone on the railroad track
 I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
 or maybe too far apart.

The scenery was impoverished:
 scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
 I saw the little pond

where the dirty old hermit lives,
 lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
 lucidly year after year.

The hermit shot off his shot-gun
 and the tree by his cabin shook.
Over the pond went a ripple
 The pet hen went chook-chook.

"Love should be put into action!"
 screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
 tried and tried to confirm it.