Empire Builder

each night, twenty rods

off in the distance, softer

rumblings jangle steel

a modest whisper,

a ghost light breaking the laws

of still perspective

God's eyelash batting,

across the window plane quick

enough to be missed

itself a steel snake

winding and bending its way

through northern reaches

slithering through the

city centers, suburbs and 

small towns on the route

picking up those that

can't afford the plane ticket

and there aren't Greyhounds

wilderness gateway,

trips to coffee capitol

and hippie city

the flagship of the

Great Northern Railway since the

dirty, dusty days

called Empire Builder

in honor of the master

entrepreneur

time passes and the

names change and so does the route

sometimes, a new way

once further south but

cuts are made and places once

served are left to rot

yet even when times 

are good, fate intervenes to

screw up normalcy

a rising lake and

a natural resource boom

run interference

and yet the constant

of time has observable

patterns, rhythmic hints

empires rise and fall,

expand and contract, from the

halls down to the rails

and the great men of

the past built the rails, made the

connections happens

and today, that long

legacy remains intact

for all the riders