by Carol Brennan King

Poem 2 in a series

Can you feel it?

the rumble of the black

steel monster

gulping clean air

exhaling fire and sparks

air too hot to breathe.

Can you feel it?

the air shimmering in hot waves

burning your face as it

passes by

this thing, that shakes the earth

And then the air stills

the leaves spin their last,

hanging sad, goodbyes

whispered

into the empty channel

through the forest

I step high over the

steel rails, and laugh

as my foot dangles

into the emptiness

over the cinders,

no rails now

where are the rails?

the orange and red

and yellow leaves

like shards of broken rainbows

litter the path I heard

the monster train pass

only now there are no

footprints in the cinders

there are no rails to

hold the train in place

the train that carries

coal to burn and

people to work and

bales of cotton to

factories.

Can you feel it?

the sadness of the empty

air, for the mass of leaves

cannot match the mass of

the great, black, steel engine

belching smoke through the forest

Now only bicycles and carriages

crunch the cinder, and the feet

of walkers and their dogs

mark the march of time.

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