A Train

Designed by the finest — engineers in all the land.

Physicists and mathematicians, they all lent a hand.

The engine fast — electric too!

The power of thousands of horses,

And no single person knew…

How all the parts together fit — complexity immense.

Electronics, mechanics, computer science…

And the union making sense?

Inner panels mahogany, white plush reclining seats.

The flooring is a woody mauve, top chefs provide the eats.

The job, however, is not yet done — seems never will it be.

A lighter, faster, stronger trend,

many such numbers do not end.

Fights over the driver, common, that can be assured.

At present, though, there are a few — many cards upon the board.

And in now, the time of all past times,

Where we perhaps should take heed;

Trump cards that we never knew,

Avoid the exhaust, put up the speed.

And many passengers — they feel discontent,

For they know not where they go.

And those same passengers don’t always have intent,

to explore what they do not yet know.

To ask where it is their train will head,

Nor look to history —surely no more suitable a show, though!

Why not rather ride passively instead,

than explore stories from forever ago?

And as the gears crank up, the sun moves down — or does the smoke blot out the sky?

How clever we are, how fast and slick —

…but our answers lie in not how but why.

And the why cannot be found out there — nor in complex circuitry.

Nor the bowels of the great deep blue sea,

Nor — Mr. Hawking — in M-Theory.

And as the wheels spin faster, with mass hurtling down.

Smoke churning out — no birds around.

How long before once more we see…

Realize again, to some degree,

that the answer — friends — is in you and me.