The Silent Train Poem by Nicholas J. Roberts

Travelling distances long and unknown,
Darkness in front and behind,
All my life has been spent on the rails, on my own;
Darkness is all that I ever find.

In my dreams there are fountains of evergreen light,
Children are playing who have never known fear,
There are mountains so high that they stretch out of sight,
And air that is fresh and clear.

I can't believe that my life is real,
And not just some story that somebody wrote:
So foolish, so pointless, and almost surreal;
Almost drowning; only just afloat.

All these people around me, acting the part,
Pretending they're not just the same as me,
Exquisitely, painstakingly, can't even start
To admit to themselves, to see

That we're all travelling distances, blindly, by night,
We all walk the same path, we are birds of a feather.
We could make our own fountains of evergreen light
By joking and caring and travelling together.