We’re Going For A Ride On A Train-Train Poem by Fred Babbin

Locomotive in the station.
Dinosaur on wheels
Exhaling steam
And feeding on coal
With a full load of water
So necessary for its motion.
“All aboard”, chomping at the bit
-Waiting.
“Everybody on” - The whistle blows
And the wheels creak their noisy song
as the movement begins – slowly.
And the power increases,
And the music of the creaky wheels
joins the rhythmic percussion
of the pistons in their cylinders
that cannot be stayed..
A man-made animal
consuming, breathing, steam
and moving - faster, faster, faster!
with the tail of smoke
trailing behind the dinosaur.
The dinosaur screams as
The roads whip by.
The weeds, the shrubs, the trees
Become a green blur.
As everything changes (a law of the universe)
This world is movement for us
And woe to the one who tries to stop us!
We are power!
But everything changes,
and all things must come to an end.
There is the station, a microcosm on the landscape
that becomes larger and larger,
as the train begins its attenuation of motion
and the percussive rhythmic beats of the pistons in their cylinders
come farther and farther apart,
eventually replaced by the creaking of the wheels,
until all sound ceases except the hissing of the steam.
“Everybody off – end of the line”.
And the residual exhilaration of our ride
cools as we face our prosaic existence.