Boxcar
Whose voice lingers
among the gathered stones,
raised then lowered as if
to ensnare followers?
This is not the issue.
Nor should we speak of paper
shuddering in the wind
and the dense glare of shovels
in the night underfoot.
Pray that the road continues
beyond the next curve
or increment of time.
Trust in motion,
the reticence of trees.
“Boxcars” first appeared here in November 2015. It had been moldering in a folder for three decades when I uncovered it. I have no idea what originally sparked it.
O at the Edges 
Your post brought out such a yearning in me. I grew up a kilometre from the train tracks in our town. The box cars always seemed so mysterious to me. I would wonder what was in them; where they’d been and where they were going. The sound of trains followed me to the city I lived in until I retired. But the mournful sound of a train whistle has been absent in the little town I’ve been calling home for the past 7 years. I didn’t even know I was missing it until I went back to the city to visit my kids…
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Years ago I lived in a cheap apartment near railroad tracks. I loved the sound of trains rumbling by, and that lonesome whistle. Always will.
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💕💕💕
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Me too 🙂
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I feel comfortable roaming around in these words, Bob. I can look up look down forward back look and feel…..good rediscovery
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I wish I knew what sparked this poem. Probably a combination of nostalgia and a curiosity about the future. Now it exists as an artifact of a younger poet.
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Leonard Cohen said if he knew where the good poems come from, he’d go there more often…
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Yeah, no kidding. Leonard was right!
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I particularly like “the reticence of trees.”
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I’ve always found trees to be calming, restrained, dignified.
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So have I. We live on a wooded lot, so I can see trees outside every window in the house.
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