Trains In The Distance Poem by Laurence Overmire

I ride on the backs of trains
Hoping to hear hoboes
Singing
Songs of a lost America
Before the Space Age and The Bomb
A time when riding was a
Dream, a chance to see
The world
Each city and town distinct
drugstore and barber shop
steel mill and mine
farmland and rolling hill
The pastures whizzing by…

Sometimes I still hear the whistle
blow
The wind chugging through the trees
My hat pulled low across my brow a
Tug of wheat between my teeth
And time just doesn't seem to matter
I kick back my boots on a bale of straw
And drift away
Rocking to the rhythm of the rails.

~ Laurence Overmire

(Previously published in Honor and Remembrance, Indelible Mark Publishing,2007)