Hiraeth*

onthehillsfoto©robcullen

Stopping at Rahway.

Newark, Elizabeth, New Brunswick,
Linden, Perth Amboy,
I listened to the old names
of the Union called out
as I passed through
to the stop at Rahway.

It was a time of pilgrimage,
a time of unsaid wanderings
to those places
of my imagination,
the streets of towns
of heroes I’d read.

I took a walk through
Rutherford, New Jersey.
to find the Hillside cemetery
where they’d laid out
William Carlos Williams
but not The Others.

Riding the Amtrak
to Penn Station
I looked out onto
the Hackensack meadows
and the dulled yellow grass reeds
of the Passaic wetlands.

Heavy snow had fallen
and the temperature
had dropped to freezing
the skies had cleared
and it was that combination
that spoke to the heart of me.