Stand on the Commercial Street Bridge
and look South.
The majesty of the Peak
makes the crooked red brick road
look like a pathway to heaven.
Perhaps a crooked street was a message from theocratic
own officials that such a spiritual road is never
straight.
Or maybe that is as straight a line
as officials could draw that long ago day.
It could have just been a payday with
its flowing rum.
Some say that more red bricks are needed
for a crooked street and the community
was supporting a local business.
Nothing strange about that local spirit,
of course.
There is the theory that the town shrunk
as the population dropped and
the crooked street is nothing more than
stretch marks on the town's belly.
The idea that a coal mine shaft
is under there and the water in the mine
shrunk the street defies
all rules of mining engineering.
No matter that Colorado School of Mines has
issued a disclaimer for all its graduates.
But the rumor that it was an early attempt at
community art is as recent as the
orange cloth strung across
California's Marin County.
That the street is the original Santa Fe Trail
and the Mentor wouldn't let them change
it is a mixed up story at best.
It was already crooked and bricked
when he came to town.
He just wouldn't let them pave over the bricks.
There is the preferred explanation that
the street is straight for those
who are without sin.
But in truth, the street is crooked
as another example of studied
community quaintness.
Tourists will forever remember
he small town with the spine
curved with osteoporosis.
Or it could have been a clone
of the drawer's morality.
Me, I never noticed it was crooked
until you pointed it out!
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