for Lida Harris <br /> <br />Then died there the rose beside the house of tin. <br /> <br />The track bore no train for years. <br />Weeds travel tendriled and <br />yellow rooted between trestles. <br />Broken vessels whistle through <br />shattered teeth of glass. <br />Only wind and no rusted train passes. <br /> <br />Though the scene bears dislocation, <br />though the brain remembers station and motion <br />of steam engine and iron wheel rotation <br />the places of old gone passing <br />bear no malice toward stillness. <br />All around mute remains remind the <br />occasional passer of former days; <br /> <br />an old snuff tin crumbled in a reverent hand <br />longs for the woman grasping then, <br />holds sweet dust beneath her tongue <br />as the land must hold her now where is <br />no whisper but sleep beyond sleep. <br /> <br />Weeds to the eye are sad between rails <br />but listening to their green and yellow belles <br />the rightness of their swaying displaces all sorrow. <br />Their distance is a distance one cannot know <br />but only borrow in imagination by extension <br />of miles, their reach is ours then, translated <br />green and longing, their leaves throng the <br />evening air, in silent clamor fling down seed <br />to summer's blundering prayer.<br /><br />Warren Falcon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/abandoned-train-station-near-grandmother-s-grave/
