Abandoned Train Station Near Grandmother's Grave Poem by Warren Falcon

for Lida Harris

Then died there the rose beside the house of tin.

The track bore no train for years.
Here weeds travel, tendril-ed,
yellow rooted, between trestles.
Broken vessels whistle through
shattered teeth of glass. Only
wind and no rusty train will pass.

Though the scene bears dislocation,
though the brain remembers station
and motion of steam engine and
iron wheel rotation, the places of
old gone passing bear no malice
toward stillness. All around mute
remains remind the occasional
passer of former days,

an old snuff tin crumbled in a reverent
hand longs for the woman grasping then,
holds sweet dust beneath her tongue as
red clay must hard hold her now where
is no whisper but sleep beyond sleep.

Weeds to the eye are sad between rails
but listening to their green and yellow belles
the rightness of their swaying displaces all sorrow.

Their distance is a distance one cannot know
but only borrow in imagination by extension
of miles, their reach is ours then, translated
green and longing, their leaves throng the
evening air, in silent clamor fling down seed
to summer's blundering prayer.