Alone with an Outdoors Machine

No one wants to be up here today.
It’s perfect fall, all sunlight and shades
Of ochres, golds, and greens, dark to pale,

Oaks and aspens and water lapping
The edges of a full reservoir,
But there’s a piece of machinery,

A county truck set up to extract
Or drill out or insert god knows what,
A lone white elephant in the trees,

Some kind of jack hanging off the back
Just rattling and grinding constantly,
A jaggedly continuous roar,

And it’s chased everyone from the lake
By sunset, except you. You’re stubborn.
It’s not that you like all that rattling

Following the waves from the far shore,
But something about it underscores
The aloneness it helped to ensure.