The Demolition

I came to a street in a town and all its houses torn down.
So I asked a man in a round steel hat,
Please, if he saw a red, red cat
Leap from the high dark hall, where it curled, where it
crouched and was small.

Run away from this street, said the man (and he cried), fast
as you can.
If you can. for the wind wide awake spreads its claws,
And the ground, with a warning growl, its jaws.
But this cable swings a round steel ball, like nothing was
happening at all.

So I ran from that street and that town and all those houses
torn down,
And I hid in a barn, hid with two dogs,
And fed them on bugs that live under logs,
And starved myself thin all fall, starved myself thin most of all.

But who was to blame? Not the bugs, or the grass I ate, or
the dogs,
Or the wind like a hawk hunting me down.
For I left a cat in the rubble of a town
And trained some dogs to be quick, should it come like a
ghost from the brick.