I can't see up close, anymore, without glasses; <br />I think that's why I bought the motorcycle. <br />Now, when I wake alone, in the dark before dawn, <br />instead of wondering why God left me here, <br />I can look out the kitchen window <br />at that black beast gleaming on the sidewalk <br />and wonder why I bought the motorcycle. <br />My sons and daughters, now become <br />the grownups of the family, are bound to say <br />'You're going to kill yourself'; <br />yesterday, when I bought the thing, <br />and sneaked it out of town <br />to try its power and my nerve, <br />without plates, helmet, or front brakes, <br />I thought the same thing, <br />but I was out to find <br />where these hills come to Heaven. <br /> <br />When my wife died, I stayed with Mom, <br />a widow, long those many years, <br />and found a friend; she told me once <br />'When I was just a kid, <br />there was a train came by our town <br />they called the Sunnyland Express; <br />we kids would shiver there, out on the tracks <br />to see who'd be the last to run <br />when the Sunnyland Express came thundering down.' <br />I laughed, and said, 'What did you call that game, <br />'Leaving on the Sunnyland Express'? ' <br /> <br />Now, on the edge of winter, <br />in these last warm days that I can ride, <br />I think of Mom, <br />and how the winter always comes; <br />and of my callow joke, <br />and how she wore her wedding ring until <br />the Sunnyland Express came whispering by <br />on its way to summer.<br /><br />John Libertus<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sunnyland-express/
