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I watched a train once—
in the rain.
I watched a train
a mile long—a sad pageant
of silent soulless tonnage.
Curtained by heaven's tears.
I watched the engines
parading, prancing,
well-fed, like leopardss
at the head of the train.
So shiny, so loud,
so many odd sounds.
Monarchs of the iron trail
on their way home
to the torches—
into their sunset.
And I
counted all the cars.
One, two, three, four, five.
Green one and gray one
and blue and brown and red ones.
Six,
seven, eight, nine
Boxcars with open doors
that winked at me and fled.
Rusted and covered
with the art
of a lost generation.
Out of the mist,
the tableau—a dance
of steel on steel,
drumming
the ground relentless.
Twelve,
Canadian flag,
huge, patriotism
on the side of a train.
Interchanged across
a common border—
and a kinship
of uneasy freedom.
Eighteen,
nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.
Union Pacific gold,
Rock Island blue, Seaboard red,
and Soo silver;
short lines and long.
Some solvent—some gone.
And I
counted all the cars.
The twenty-eighth car
was bright yellow
and taller
than the rest.
Low down payments
and zero percent—
with your trade-in.
Twenty-nine,
thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two.
Four battered hoppers,
black and lonely,
thumped
like a band of peg-legged
pirates
as they rolled past.
They gossiped and grumbled;
complained
of the miles they've seen.
From the veil
of rain—
parted by muffled,
seedy squeals of ecomony—
rolled the leavings
of commerce and industry
not yet claimed
by the whining
greedy nearby Interstate.
Thirty-three,
thirty-nine,forty-five.
A dozen identical flat cars,
plus one that's not,
carrying white trailers
and farm machines;
America's industrial soul
fleeting by in the rain
at 28 miles an hour.
And the rain.
Soaks my coat,
mats my hair,
drips coldness down
my craning neck.
Splashing liquid crystals—
stain the station
platform.
Hazy, indistinct;
motion in the background;
swaying, rocking, railcars.
Down and up, back and forth.
Stunning clear
reflections.
Fifty-eight,
fifty-nine, sixty
Three tank cars,
streaked
tan and orange,
and speckled with rust,
grayed from spills;
came just before
the caboose—
remember those?
Green numbered 12179
for Burlington Northern,
proclaiming the loss
of two legends to merger;
two giants long fused.
Long, blackened scratch,
misgotten, front to back.
Wide-vision cupola
unoccupied, windows
closed as in pain.
Two men
in baseball hats
on the platform
waved to me in the rain.
Silent, stoic sentries
guarding the end
of this rolling
lament to all
the tribes lost.
And I …
counted …
all the cars.
Sixty-one,
exactly.
One mile long,
surely.
A century too late.
Swallowed by the rain.
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Train photographed on July 3, 1972, from under the platform canopy of Missoula, Montana's ex-Northern Pacific depot. See the explanation page.
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