Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

By Richard Hugo

You might come here Sunday on a whim.   

Say your life broke down. The last good kiss   

you had was years ago. You walk these streets   

laid out by the insane, past hotels   

that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try   

of local drivers to accelerate their lives.   

Only churches are kept up. The jail   

turned 70 this year. The only prisoner   

is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now   

is rage. Hatred of the various grays   

the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,   

The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls   

who leave each year for Butte. One good   

restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.   

The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,   

a dance floor built on springs—

all memory resolves itself in gaze,

in panoramic green you know the cattle eat   

or two stacks high above the town,   

two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse   

for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.

Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss

still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat

so accurate, the church bell simply seems

a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?   

Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium   

and scorn sufficient to support a town,   

not just Philipsburg, but towns

of towering blondes, good jazz and booze   

the world will never let you have

until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty   

when the jail was built, still laughs   

although his lips collapse. Someday soon,   

he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.   

You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.   

The car that brought you here still runs.   

The money you buy lunch with,

no matter where it’s mined, is silver   

and the girl who serves your food

is slender and her red hair lights the wall.