Rail-way Back-track

Once, long before the thought of counting years

crossed my mind

I walked here, counting railway ties

soaked in sweat, tar-drenched sunbeams

And dreams,

blue eyes scanning the line where skies

and the impossible met

in passions unrealized.

I didn’t know the meaning of regret

Yet.

The sumac still burns red in the purple autumn dusk

Supple breeze teases the stalwart cattail.

Choke cherry and mountain ash flaunt fruits of tempting betrayal

and in the stillness I can almost feel the thrilling and ominous

humming of steel on steel, sparks grazing the earth below

in a blazing shower of golden snow. Little girl,

tuck that hand-stitched quilt beneath your chin. Don’t cry.

The train is not really lonely at night

as it hurries by, with its long and plaintive cry.

O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o.

Progress has taken it all away.

No longer feasible, is what they say,

tearing away labor, sweat and tears of the past

with labor, sweat and tears of the present.

Eyes look to the future,

and where once I counted railway ties to the sky,

now corn-fields sigh and twilight gleams upon the echo

of a young girl's dreams. Mother, tuck that hand-stitched quilt

beneath your chin. Don’t cry. Little girls still dream out to the big sky.

Janet~

An attempt at free-verse, hidden rhyme, sort of…

I have not done very much traveling in my life...yet:)

...so my initial reaction, when I saw this prompt was 'not for me', but the more I thought about it the more I realized how often a smell, a sound, a season, triggers a memory, a re-visit to those places near and dear to the heart. Last week on one of the poetry sites the prompt was 'trains'. I would have loved to try it, but could not remember where I saw the prompt. I loved watching the train pass through the back of our property.I loved its long approach on a quiet winter night, the anticipation, a thrilling rush of fear and excitement at the first distant moan, oh, so very faint, then increasing, increasing to a thundering rush of steel and whistle and bells, reaching a crescendo,then fading, fading, fading....until all was silence once more, still gives me goose-bumps. I think this is why I thought of the railway track today...

http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/52255/railway_track_in_matheran.jpg

This photo is not the actual track but I thought it portrayed perfectly my memory...the picture is found at above link.