STOP LOOK LISTEN <br /> as gate stripes swing down <br /> count the cars hauling distance <br /> upgrade through town: <br /> warning whistle, bellclang, <br /> engine eating steam, <br /> engineer waving, <br /> a fast-freight dream: <br /> B&M boxcar, <br /> boxcar again, <br /> Frisco gondola, <br />eight-nine-ten, <br /> Erie and Wabash, <br /> Seaboard, U.P., <br /> Pennsy tankcar, <br />twenty-two, three, <br /> Phoebe Snow, B&O, <br />thirty-four, five, <br /> Santa Fe cattle <br /> shipped alive, <br /> red cars, yellow cars, <br /> orange cars, black, <br /> Youngstown steel <br /> down to Mobile <br /> on Rock Island track, <br />fifty-nine, sixty, <br /> hoppers of coke, <br /> Anaconda copper, <br /> hotbox smoke, <br />eighty-eight, <br /> red-ball freight, <br /> Rio Grande, <br /> Nickel Plate, <br /> Hiawatha, <br /> Lackawanna, <br /> rolling fast <br /> and loose, <br />ninety-seven, <br /> coal car, <br /> boxcar, <br /> CABOOSE!<br /><br />Philip Booth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/crossing/
