Across the Tracks
Across the Tracks
I crossed the tracks last night with my Mother
then turned back to take a picture
of the sentinel who stands guard of all who pass by.
On the other side of the track is a tall building,
on a hill, with a commanding view of the plain below.
All the way to the distant Mountains.
My parents honeymooned in those White Mountains.
They rode away, from a small wedding,
that their families did not attend,
on my Father’s motorcycle.
I once flew over the largest of those peaks, President Mountain,
in a plane, in the co-pilot seat.
We went right over the top through a small cloud.
I am a different kind of co-pilot these days,
and still have no experience.
We admired the view from my Father’s hospital room.
In the tall building, on the hill top, near the top floor.
He is on oxygen now.
I say that he needs it, because the air is thin
here on Everest.
My joke rattles loudly like a coin in a tin cup.
Late last night I woke up to hear the trains going by.
The sound of metal on metal,
the thundering weight of the cars,
something powerful is passing nearby.
I think of Hank Williams, so lonesome I could cry.
I think of the freight train blues.
I think of my Father, in the tall building on the hill top,
looking out over the mountains, seeing himself—
through 55 years, at the marriage
that began there—like seeing
through the wrong end of a telescope.
