Comet Train

          When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion,

          —or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with that velocity and 

          with that direction it will ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look 

          like a returning curve . . . it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to 

          inhabit it. 

                         Henry David Thoreau, Walden

On the train moving away, 

Images almost lift me 

Back.  Moon obscured, radiant,

Slash and hatch marks, staves against 

Our ruin.  Leaving engraves

These lines, the dislocation

Of distance writes itself, pages,

Word by word.  We fall without

Writing, on the other side 

Of America.  Up with 

A Savannah sun glowing 

Orange, swampy mists, trace your 

Hand’s impressions, these ridges, 

Presence in letter and sign.

Leaving Florida this morn,

Decayed mobile home rust, strays

Unnumbered.  American

Desolation, nothing but

Outskirts without a center,

Four lane, six lane freeways, no 

Sidewalks.  In the news a dog

Who dug up her pups almost

Twenty-four hours after they 

Were buried.   A year precise

After Northridge, Kobe quakes.  

A number, sixteen-hundred, 

Means nothing human.  This page

Glares with blinding colors, a

Western setting sun out in

The Gulf and over marshes, 

Where silhouettes, shadows, these

Reflections ordinary

Transform, the moon high again.  

We walked, city empty but 

For us, on Christmas Day, to 

National Cathedral, the

Olmstead Woods a new garden

Tinged with old dangers.  The news

Says eighteen-hundred, now, yet

More, always, for us to count.

Back to the desert, somewhere 

Between San Antonio 

And Alpine, gliding over   

The Pecos River High Bridge, 

Mesquite and sage roll by more 

Quickly.  Mexico out the 

Window on my left.  Mule deer, 

Hawks and death, weathered down to 

Forgotten bone.  The remains

Of derailment strewn like a 

Toy train plunged in sand.  The moon,

Consolation dear, constant 

In darkness, moves slowly from

Right to left over the train,

Glaring through windows.  Shanty 

Town shacks across the Rio 

Grande.  Dirt roads, lifeless clothes hung 

Up to dry.  Cooking fire smoke, 

Las maquiladoras, dust 

And dogs, the border patrol 

Watching, always watching.  In 

A crowd, over there, a hand, 

Single, rises up and waves. 

Storm over,  I am not the 

Same.  As for matters of the 

Soul, identity, there is 

Nothing—no home—yet places

Strangely familiar, dead 

End walk ways with prospects of 

Empty space, meaning deferred,

Just surfaces, signs, sigils

Of dislocation outside

The frame of cartography. 

Wonderful to sleep with the

Windows open, distant dull

Freeway hum, letting love play

Out across this expanse, fray

The possible.  Palms, cacti,

Blue skies, just compensation

For a desert.   Within two

Perfect arches, the sun rise,

Orange light, diffuse in rain.

We walked to the Cathedral, 

Sweating humid the whole way.   

Dark streets and alleys, dim street

Lights, winding roads, dark forest 

Vine and undergrowth, insect

Symphony, Wisconsin Ave. 

We hid the receipt between 

Her stones, talked about how cold

It was last time we were there, 

How quiet, while cicadas

And crickets, all the night time

Natives, rehearsed their ancient

Repertoire without ending.

One-hundred-nine degree heat,

Drinking like buddies, hanging 

With Los Mexicanos—La 

Casa del Barrio home

No longer.  Signifieds float

Free, uncertainty reigns in

Familial ruins, one-

Hundred-and-nine people lost 

In Florida, swallowed up  

By the swamp, so few found.  A

Dark refuge from the sun, dull

Gray green.  Foliage drips rain

In pink fluorescent circles.

Night improves some scenes, saves most.  

DC, Tempe, Portland, these

Points, constellations, and the 

Distance between.  A city,

Desert and forest, linked by 

A comet train, its schedule

Familiar but seldom. 

Departure and arrival,

To and from, overlap as

If writing the already

Written.  Again, to no end,    

Trains connect.  The Pioneer,

Silver Star, Empire Builder, 

The Sunset and Capital 

Limited.  Melancholy 

Blue apparitions wander

Back and forth, oblivious 

To the light, the letters, one.

Columbia Gorge, endless 

Streams, distance floods in every 

Opening.  Magpies, La Grande,

Bugs humming, we came this way 

Before, stood and listened.  Now

Ogden, Utah, gives way to

Green River, Wyoming.  Then

Denver’s long stop, Omaha, 

Osceola, Iowa.

Time and distance, word into 

Page—you at the last—taper 

To where we parted twenty 

Months ago.  We live within

Narrative uncertainty,

These empty Illinois fields, 

What you had reason, and words,

To expect from that moment. 

Only a few hours more.  Each 

Word brings me still closer.  The 

Moment I leave off writing

I arrive, contain distance 

And time in a frame of our 

Own making, a returning

Curve.  Cumberland, Martinsburg,

Harpers Ferry, Potomac 

River, Shady Grove, Rockville, 

Silver Spring, Union Station,

The National Cathedral.