The train’s call is a thin pre-dawn bellow.
It slides up a riverbed slick with rain and secret in mist.
There is the urgency of momentum – thrum of diesel ever more strident as a rise steals the power.
No passengers, just a driver in a room of iron, eyes following a yellow beam.
It is a parade of bent trees, sheds in shadow – ever on, ever on – liquids and grains in long grey tombs.
South today.
Not that you would know if it were going or returning: it is just a lump of sound caught between the lines,
pressing past shadowy roads, fields floating in snaking mist, figures at windows – alone, together, moving.
The rattle, the precision, a driver, eyes fixed on nothing.
A low cantankerous moan in the night
Nice word usage here: strident, iron, tombs, cantankerous…to name some 🙂 Enjoyable read.
On track by the sound of it.
Hi john: the ‘Train’ has started a little poem warming up in my yard, and I hope to put it in the tracks soon!