Archive of Our Own

Summary:

I'm all wrapped up in the world of demolition derby so please go read snae's beautiful words!

title from the poem Wrecked Automobiles by William Robert Moses

Crusted with soil, and the soil forest-matted;
Brooded by peaks, and the peaks in lawless cloud,
The enemy: that black amorphous ore,
That earth-demon, waiting to be combatted.

So the plans came, precise as circle or square,
And the shapely tools, like tamed, treacherous beasts.
You have heard the ode that records that short fight;
You know the discipline forced on che conquered there.

Some of it, then, was moulded to smooth cars
To hurry with ease on the smooth, exact roads;
Some, that is, must implement man's dream
Of docile speed, sifted of checks and jars-

Till the shattering crash, and the dreamed-up shape gone,
The metal turned scrap, and the scrap readied for rust;
Someone, too, crushed to chaos of man,
The pattern crushed that his members were strung upon.

For the Enemy was not ore, under disarranged
Mountains conquered, or yoked when the trees fell.
Under the plan, in the conqueror's own breast,
Forever blackens the Enemy heart, unchanged.