TRAINS

There is an old railway line in my town.
It runs under fields, nettles, thistle and clay and burrows under houses; the phantom train.
I often wonder about it.
The train, a mighty moveable fortress of steel and iron devouring forests, internal combustion.
The power of the brute billowing through the landscape people and commodities.
A to B.
It's not there now.
But I miss it having never known it.

I find great solace on trains.
Commuting; the gentle ebb and flow of the train on a sea of wood and metal.
It calms and soothes.
Here, I think, here I write.

Some liken the carriage to a cradle.
I do not disagree.
A cradle of ideas and inspiration.
I look out the window and I see the blurry green.
And the sky.
An expressionist painting.
Vibrant, alive.  But.
We are speeding past.

The window can only afford a snapshot.

Trains may offer an analogy of life.
A microcosm of society, this complex, varied assortment of people, of different dispositions, held within a capsule, travelling; spirited toward their destination with only a window view of life.  Restricted and blurry and at a distance.

How little we know.