What is the Rust Belt?
Can we define it?
   - on a map, we mean -
Can we circle in black marker,
topographical green and brown, one mound,
from Canada on down to
Kentucky and say
well, there -
America’s sore fingers in old age
floating, separate, in the pond,
white and knobbed and wrapped around something
a lever, the haft of an oar,
the tuning dial to twist to Cavalcade,
the body of the eel which just keeps swimming away.

You said it in a message -
“Rust Belt” -
and a great blank region was filled
by old poets in corduroy
better than their surroundings
and if not better precisely
then at least when they drink
they drink in bars like smokestacks
with hubcaps on the walls, with weak plumbing,
listening to conversations, not having them.

Rust is something I know well:
I feel rust (but I don’t wear corduroy).
Rust like a signal ingredient
all through the cupboards.
Shot through, something you have too much of
and could never want to write about.
Rust in this message, too.

Indulge me for a few brief moments, if you will. While placing some old photos in an album, I realized that soon it will have been 25 years since the passing of my father. Had it not been for him, I wouldn't have been able to compose some of the stories that have appeared on HP. For that reason, I chose to re-post my piece, "Rust to Rust." For those that have taken the time to have previously read it, "thank you."  For any new members that I hope will read it, thank you, ahead of time.

Richard Riddle


At first glance, it's just a rust-covered pan, typical of what could be found in the trash, hiding behind an old abandoned building. But, its more than that.

This pan is more than a hundred years old. It belonged to my great-grandfather, to my grandfather, then my father. It's the pan my father used to find those small, glistening nuggets, taken from small streams in the mountains of Arizona and California, from which my mother's wedding rings were created.

I cannot  begin to imagine the events this pan had laid witness to, or how many stories lie beneath that blanket of red crust. Oh, the history lessons it could teach. Held by calloused hands, it tasted the water that held those particles of nature that men sought, and died for, in their search for wealth. It heard the cries, and caught the tears, of many who failed in their endeavors.

At one time I considered restoring it to it's earlier time, then realized I would be destroying a history book, and the protective blanket that preserves those untold stories, hopefully, for many more years to come. It will be passed to my grandchildren.

               copyright: richard riddle-February 16,2015