THE RAILROADER
by Richard Aston
I loved you locomotive;
pondered your pulsing power;
how steam bellowed from your protrusions into the azure sky;
how you ascended hills, plowed through snow;
how your whistle sounded across the wide plains, shrieked off mountain sides,
resonated in canyons;
how you crossed our country tenfold faster than anything previous,
how you lugged tons of cargo, hundreds of people, rumbling like an earthquake,
rousing all;
how you were a complication of pistons, gears, springs, levers, wheels twinkling
on rails,
steel against steel ringing, fire out-belching smoke, people watching in awe;
how you were an emblem of power, propulsion, progress; the ultimate
technological fix,
forging far frontiers, gushing gold-grabbers, steaming speedily somewhere.
Now in repose,
you are a museum piece;
pampered, painted, preserved,
creaking along aged tracks
to give your riders —
riders now accustomed to supersonic speeds,
so far above all wild life,
they forget —
to give your riders
a hint of where somewhere
ought to be.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Aston.
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