The engine will pass before we get there!
Tumbling down the path through the woods,
Crumbling the edge of the dirt bank racing,
Crossing the side track at the hill bottom,
Leaping the tall dry weeds to the final bank
Above the active line just in time to wave;
The horn waves back - an exploding air thickener
Cheering us on to future locomotive greetings.
We ran cleaner then, even in the woods,
Not that tomorrow wasn't there,
But there was just no reason to expect
It would be any different than today.
And through all those days was the horn:
The blood-gelling, time-stopping mantric overlay.
It obliterated all senses when it was on top of you,
Like a tidal wave pulverizing you through the ears.
But when you heard it far away, like from the hill top,
It sounded as pathetic as an un-swum creek,
Rippling over the rocks on a sweltering summer's day,
Especially in the middle of the night;
Then I'd wake, sleepily comforted by the distant drone,
And never know that forty-plus years later
I'd hear by chance the same plaintiff mourn,
And remember six-years-old and cry - and love living.
