| THE TRAIN DOESN’T STOP HERE
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|
being an essay on time,
its three parts representing the tenses of
life
You looked up the silent track
against the sun;
the sun looked down the track.
You knew it was coming,
pressed your ear to a rail
and heard the thunder of its coming.
Then faint as a prayer at edge of night
the distant train appeared,
willed into morning from the edge of night.
You stood and watched it grow;
the rail bed shook;
like a metal flower the train began to grow.
It passed.
And now you stand looking down the track
as the train is leaving
the light of morning,
and you watch it fade and shrink.
l
Evening pigeon haunting a yew tree
call to waiting voices among sun-drenched
oaks
as I sit beside a grazing pony
and look out over scarcely swaying charlock
at wood-edge.
Sun now sunk behind Great Ridge
still catches treetops,
weaving a garland of sleep
among leaves barely intruded upon.
Here’s a peace as delicate as Tutankhamen’s
flowers,
as yellow as charlock,
distant as wood pigeon from the farthest
tree.
And here I dream
of a valley
I shall know
when I am big,
of a distant
valley
closer than my
pony’s rein,
more distant
than the sky,
where my friend
and I
shall pass the
livelong day
among the hornbeams
and the ash.
The sun will
rise
and she will
smile
and the sun will
rise
over the land
of Cockaigne.
ll
lll
Evening ghosts haunting the empty rooms of
my past,
open bills in silent brooding calls
from the edge of childhood
where my pony,
long dead,
once grazed.
Here
beside a hand-crafted pine table
in the land of Cocaine,
fair land of Subtopia,
I dream
how the sun sank behind Great Ridge
and the pigeon calls scarce disturbed my
dream.
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| Note to readers. The omission of Tense
ll is deliberate following the instructions
of the poet. |
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