Back on Track

So many things to delight my heart tonight in so many blogs. A photo of Pearl and her new boyfriend Nick with the rest of us on FlitzyPhoebe; chanting in the streets of Tehran in support of Sufis and Baha'is; interview with a young lady imprisoned in Iran for a little while [a long while to her!]; the blog I newly discovered the other day, happyveganface; and more poems at last from my friend Charles King on his blog, blackoaktree.

He wrote a poem about trains, and his love for trains from a very young age.

Our house in the tiny town of Albion was about a mile from the railroad tracks. From my house I could hear the chord of the horns of the trains going by the town. We practiced balancing on the rails. We walked along the rails, even sometimes crossing over a river or ravine on the trestles, a gamble with your life at stake. We learned to listen to the rails for the hum of an approaching train.

One time when I was about three our family was walking along the tracks and we were in a deep cut when a freight train came along. There was room by the side of the tracks to stay out of harm's way, but only just. My mother's fear, I learned later, was that I might cross the tracks to be with her at the last minute.

Even at three I knew better than that.

One of my older sisters held onto me while the train passed, impossibly loud. I cried but some part of me was in love, through the terror. The subliminally deep thrumming of the wheels on the tracks, under the roaring of the engine and the wailing of the whistle.

Now in the summer nights with the windows cracked open to let the air chill the humidity of my room, I snuggle down at night and listen to the songs of the passing trains.