Skyline Relief in a Passing Train
I see the New York City skyline
Drenched in early morning orange,
Etched like a relief
In the side of a passing train,
Roaring beside my own.
The light washes over buildings and smoke stacks
And that in-between land of tall weeds from city
to reflection in train.
We just left and already it seems so far, already
My memory of a fat hazy moon
On 12th west side, is a dream.
Is this possible?
The full moon brings possibilities – he seemed
(In my dreamy stroll)
To smile down on me between those buildings
With a blessing.
E. B. White speaks of New York City so compellingly—
I’m willing, when I read it,
To run for the solitude and ferment
He describes
And now and now, opportunities
And possibilities,
Bursting at the seams, yet tempered with
The heavy
Weighty sadness of leaving
Home.
Which ancestors will aid in my decision?
Is this my will or
Is it my great aunt Alice who swore she was too afraid to try?
Or my great grandmother Alice who was (from her poems)
a wife and mother first?
Or my father, who stayed in Baltimore? Although in this instance,
I need only ask, “Daddy, what should I do?”
Crossing in click-clack, the trains pass each other by,
The crossroads clearly defined.
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