The Train Yard...

The train yard is my backyard

Mostly, the train tracks are unused

except by red spray cans and the graffiti

artists dry of imagination. School boys

trapeze the thin rails; they practice their poise,

balance their cool, burn up their fuse

‘til its gone, and the bus rolls in.

Harry saw the deep metallic lines

and begged me to stop by the rusted tracks

to hear a train smoke its stack

if it ever chugged through town.

We waited 10 minutes. He whined

When, when will it come by?

It never passed us and I

saw them as skid marks that couldn’t slow down;

two black ruts where the government wheeled

us along until we didn’t ride.

Every week Harry plays awhile, then feels

the steely cold deepen and we slip inside.

Rare midnights the whistle blows,

but I gave up the black window long ago,

content to listen to high-pitch descend

like the wails of any other ghost

lost on a limited circular trail.

I wished it would end.

And then it came while I drove along the rail

in middle March; out from a teething tree

its cars drove in tandem beside me.

I became the train and we did not budge

from each other. It rattled like a toy

shaken by the violent curiosity of a boy

who’s found it sounds much

like blue rain. I was caught in the pull:

my old childhood hitched behind

that giant block, the iron cargo hull

packed with heavy gifts and we resigned

then to age, give, and be forgotten.

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One thing I love about taking a poetry class is that I'm constantly inspired. Oh, not always directly by a certain poem, but by words here and there, or a structure I hadn't considered or noticed. There've been several poets by now in the course who have had poems with 6-line stanzas, sometimes with consistant rhyming, others no.

I wrote this poem because of two things: the time I spent with my niece and nephew last weekend, and, yes, Harry wanted to see the train tracks all over town and wanted to see the train roll by (although it neve did). And then, it is also true that I was driving home one evening (and I do live next to the railroad tracks) and I found myself driving alongside the train at almost the same speed and I thought it was pretty cool. 

And then, I just started thinking about how I could put these experiences in poetry and what I could learn and eventually I wrestled the poem onto a page. I hope you enjoy!