Sometimes, friends, poetry happens. I've been thinking about the name Union Pacific in poetic terms ever since my March road trip. Somehow, in a way I can't articulate, I have blog comrades Reya & Dave King & Delwyn to thank for this poem happening when it did, as I found something clicking after reading their posts today at According to the Cosmology of Reya, Pics & Poems & a hazy moon. Odd, since none of these posts really had to do with the poem's theme(s) - or did they?
If this is #1, will there be more? That remains to be seen - I never make poetic predictions. But I hope you enjoy this one.
Union Pacific #1
landscape at 8,000 feet the rocks’ iron bones the
cranial frigid mesas the wind turbines off kilter swoosh
a freight train skating over the tableland west of Cheyenne be-
tween the sagebrush & the fog & cell towers a
tourist log cabin advertising wi fi espresso Native American
gifts a toy train skating across the styrofoam table a yellow
locomotive a line of rust orange hoppers hauling coal &
graffiti west the pump jacks’ nodding grazing for natural gas
I will always be lonesome & the radio only speaks static
at this elevation
Laramie in a blue fog light has dis-
appeared from the rearview how many miles back a copper
bust of Lincoln hulking over the highway I will always be
lonesome at this elevation a freight train skating across the
great divide the cold grinding of couplers this morning at
19 degrees at the Rawlins’ siding I will always be
traveling thru time between the blue blue fog & the
sagebrush & a series of semi-trucks clattering &
whooshing over the great divide
which is lone-
someness made stone & wind & a longing for a
home amongst the fog & freight trains
Jack Hayes
© 2010