Going Home On The Train Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

The way home for me was eastbound
on the Northern Pacific from California
riding coach (pillow furnished for a fee)
and reading paperback books -

everything from Robinson Jeffers-
'...stones have stood for a thousand years,
and pained thoughts found the honey
of peace in old poems.'

to Denise Levertov's ILLUSTRATED ANCESTORS
'...poems direct as what the birds said,
hard as a floor, sound as a bench,
mysterious as the silence when the tailor
would pause with the needle in the air.'

including the obscure Ray Durem -
'...I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.'

I got off when the train reached Chicago-
an obscure soldier home from war.