Transcontinental Railroad

 

In a slow place, I wonder

 

I know, places are for walking

Wonder with an a, to wander, then

But the movement on the inside is

What seems to matter

The value in introspection, of hiking the

Mind on another side

 

Thoreauvian travel, as it were

I was told he walked to Concord often

From the pond, a matter of some

Miles

Not many

And this defined great travel to Thoreau

Because of how he trod

Through the

 

Interior

Pathways and passageways

That were of value to him

Through illumination

 

Pegging a lantern of discovery from

One part of a dark way (now lit)

Into the next

 

It’s like an empty railway

The bed and ballast, maybe ties

And

Will a set of rails

Then a train course over

Or course through

A plain, a valley, and

A tunnel

 

Maybe new passageways

Unvehicled

Lacking mechanism

Discipline

No timetable needed

Or requested

 

Ambling through the corridors instead

And hollows about discovery

‘Til a slide or lack of entryway

Makes us

Go ‘round another

Corner, a bend

 

Take an unmeasured angle or,

Who knows,

Set up another platform

 

We go

Out of order,

Unprepared

Or maybe all aligned

 

To find

Anew

The course

Or, yes, the track

Of inner life

 

Less taken, maybe

Maybe difficult but

Brave to try

 

Take it

Like the flyer (Dixie or

Overland) upon the rails

 

You

Be the kind

That must stop to rest,

Out of respect

For human crossings,

Not to freeze up at

The borders

 

‘Cause

Neither they nor you

Have to

 

C L Couch

 

 

Arne Hückelheim

Railway tracks in the sunset. Taken at Frankfurt Central Station.