The Train

Train brakes
echo
in a river-run
circle around my world.
Do you hear the train?

Does it wake you
as it sweeps it's
coal-filled path
around the Mon?
49 cars,
to each
engine
Had you noticed?
And that ever-present
Conrail symbol
smiles at me
50 times,
100 times,
or more.

At night,
when the train
rumbles through
a thick valley-fog,
Do you watch for the train
you can only hear?
© 1997 Robert Waller,
Conrail Cyclopedia.
Photograph appears by permision.

N. M. Dulin


A note about this poem:
California University (CAL) is a small State System University in Southwestern Pennsylvania. CAL sits in a low lying area, in a small town, next to the Monongehela River. The Monongehela River, known by locals as the "Mon" flows northward into the city of Pittsburgh, where it joins the Allegheny River, to form the Ohio River (hence, Three Rivers).
The Mononghela River has long been used as a major transportation route for the coal barges that come and go from the city of Pittsburgh. The "Mon" meanders through the region, marking the land with the curves and insets of a jigsaw puzzle. Railroad tracks run in a nearly identical path next to the river, crossing back and forth over it, but serving the same master as the barges- The transport of coal.


© 1995, N.M. Dulin. This poem orinally appeared in the California Times


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