Gold, Dust

The Gold Rush wanes by the time
two brothers reach northern California.

It will last forever, they thought. Visions of free,
shiny stuff glittering in foothill streams
sustained them for four brutal months.

Was it free?
What is the price of leaving wives, children
on Prince Edward Island?
Cost of gangrene from axe injury?
Tab of heavy drinking, knife fights?

It’s the rush. Gold glinting in creek beds.
$16 to $20 a day. Fast money, always a rush,
the rush of being flush.

The two Irishmen straggle into Placerville.
Trash mounds reach taller than wagon roofs,
most shanties are abandoned. Scrawny pack mules
pick over garbage, gravel.

The brothers will not return East. They know that.
They lack fortitude for another crossing,
own no gold to pay the way.

Not risk-takers by nature, they reclaim
laborer roots, travel
to the Central Valley, work wheat fields.

They don’t speak of failure or regret,
but each morning brings dread about the day
ahead, and the next one to follow. 

They rush nowhere. Not even sun is golden.

(Published in Woodcrest Magazine, 2023)