Remembering Trains

We heard the whistle first, shrill and loud,

announcing an approaching train fast approaching,

two short blasts and a long wail echoing back,

a universal signal across the Vermont hills

where we lived those youthful summers, school

long forgotten and too far away on a summer’s day.

A distant locomotive rumbled softly toward us,
growing louder, bearing down, passing through

our little town, westward bound, westward and gone;

and we dropped our toys and bikes, serious pursuits,

and dashed to the tracks’ edge, two parallel rails

leading away towards places beyond the here and now,

exotic places we only dreamed of, existing nowhere.

Waiting, patient, our expectations high, we watched

where the rails converged around the bend;

the ground around us trembled now, the rumble

crescendo’d to an engine’s heavy roar and the screech

of metal crushed against an iron rail.

I see it; here it comes, someone calls out,

the prestige of seeing it first, and we all turned,

frozen as the train grew larger, fast upon us.

Our arms pumped a signal, a wave to the engineer,

who returned a short blast of his horn to acknowledge us,

and we began the long count of cars in tow,

a long line behind three engines, extending

beyond our sight, beyond the hill, boxcars

and rail cars, flatbeds and tankers,

a count soon lost in the rhythmic whoosh and clack

of railcars passing, too many cars, too quickly passing.

Counting them, though, is but a passing of time;

our anticipation is for the red caboose tailing behind.

We would hop aboard this caboose, if we could,

let it carry us away, take us where we longed to be,

somewhere else, adventuring, discovering places

we might not ever see, our futures set well beyond Jericho,

so far away, so uncertain, so eager to be discovered.

In sight now, the caboose stops our counting,

our shouts drowned out by the train’s noise,

or unheard in our daydreaming as we dashed

down the railway’s bed to speed its arrival,

speed its passing. We waved and shouted to a man

sitting high above us, boxed there, his job

but to watch for kids like us, for he, too, perhaps,

was once a chaser of trains, a young boy awaiting

a train to take him away into tomorrow, 

to exotic places across the Vermont hills

where he dreamed to go, where we dreamed to follow.

In the ensuing silence we stood, quiet ourselves,

watching the caboose continue on, chasing the train

westward towards a future we could only dream of,

a future too far away, too uncertain, and we returned

to the toys and bikes and the summer

we suspended to chase a train we would never take,

to chase the dreams of youth this season

spent among the hills of Vermont, growing and eager.