On the train by the dim
Lit water blue
With white boats
Sloping in, the train
Too metallic and
Rusted for the soft
Evening, the light inside
Too green, reminiscent
Of death and
Cleaning supplies
Along the highway the
Sun had been
Brighter, flowers drier,
Cars hot warm
Oil smelling like home
A celebration of mud
Banks and black plastic
Bumpers, dried grass
On the shoulder
Then the windows show only
A tangle of blue
Forest.
I imagine always a
White face, made, it
Would seem, of
Thick fog, will peer
At me with
Black eyes from
The forest
And the sky opens
To the sea like
A door prodded
Open with fingers
Giving to a light
Push, swinging
Forward to
Fields of gray
Water, to
Hungry breathing
And exhaling
Lung-fulls of salt
And I think of
My friend alone
With the whales
On the Archipelago,
Listening to their
Songs and
The wind and the
Motor of the
Boat skimming the water
And the lonely
Eating sky and sea
And the train
Rocks back and forth
Until the forest
Becomes black, until we
Have lost the day
And our train car
Holds in it all
Green electric light
Like the tail of
A bug, we rock
Through the night