Resurrection

one from the archives

It wasn't music I recall

that soothed my thoughts awaiting sleep,

at night I'd listen, counting trains.

No sheep for us near Stamford Brook,

though they appeared in books with rhyme.

I can't evoke a time when I

first saw one in a farmer's field

or felt my hands on grease wool coats.

Clickety clack, clickety clack,

past pictures flash inside my mind

of when in bed my tousled head

on pillows plumped as billowed cloud.

The tube brought comfort with its noise,

its rhythm rattled on steel tracks

and drapes that never kissed at night

allowed brief light to flood the space.

We'd hear the slow down and the screech,

the signal reds, applied before

the change to green allowed once more

a crawl into the station's mouth.

Alas, the darkness soon returned,

unfriendly was sporadic gloom,

but not for long another came

to brighten up the shadowed room.

An older me would stand beside

my brother in the countryside,

upon a bridge that straddled lines

where we would find in tattered logs

the times when whistles blew and steam

engulfed us both as engines old

flew past to leave us cloaked in smoke.

Stoked coal and soot filled memories.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i would put the little pill into the engine...and let my lionel train go round and round as i would lie in bed trying to go to sleep...the pill made the engine smoke...and then i would get up...and make the whistle blow...
i was very little then....but i grew up loving trains...and wishing we could have had more years of the steam engines...the coal cars etc...
you let me be back there for a few moments as i read this...your imagery gets us to see and hear what you see and hear...thanks for that.
j.

[Chris Shaw]

I found this one in my archives Jacob after reading your poem about steam trains a few days ago. I love those old trains too. They bring back wonderful memorues. I like where this poem took you. I enjoyed hearing about the little you.

Chris

[Sarah K Cass]

As always with your poems, Chris, you make me visualise. Love the "clickety clack". I can just hear it.

[Chris Shaw]

Thank you Amber. I still love the sounds of trains on rail tracks even today. They aren"t quite so noisy though

Chris