230206 train song

 Monday, Feb. 6

train song

we have ridden this train for so long

and always there has been in the far distance 

vague and pale 

a place where we are old and coming into that station 

where we will rest and picnic in the afternoon

but suddenly 

(how did we not notice?

forty years of distance travelled telescoped)

the earth has fallen away

the track falters

the train goes into space and nothing 

is recoverable

our belongings are left by the rail side

our hopes

we stand bereft

the life collection of beloved 

trinkets are nothing 

lifeless useless relics that i loved

so much and i wanted to have time with them in my days 

to live among

look at each one

far-off dreams

to play the piano

learn a song

to mosaic useless mosaics 

slowly and lovingly for no reason

like a gingerbread castle

just because it could be made

and smiled at

the track is not there

we walk now off any path

stumbling our way

in uncharted wilderness 

alone

orphans

we are ourselves parents to turn to

the frame our children live in 

for now

but we are unframed

no longer held and

the glass that protected us broken to pieces

subject to the weather 

and time that 

suddenly hammers fast

it makes one pay attention

to life, the sky, one's body (corps)

loving, trying to love

the train

long ago was going to a far 

distant place

here we are in the far distance

and there is no place 

for us and no rest

MY 2023

Putting together my train song playlist, I am finding that trains and tracks turn up in the corners of songs, a persistent metaphor of life. 

Ferron: "Life don't clickety clack down the straight line track, it come together and it come apart." 

John Prine: "I can hear the train tracks through the laundry on the line."

Amos Lee:"I'm out here on the night train, trying to get us safely home."

Thank you for visiting. Keep safe. I think that the pandemic is not over, but the world is shutting its eyes tight, like a child, hoping the scary thing will disappear.

Mumma Yaga