You\u2019ve never really travelled, until you take the train
\nover trestles, under mountains, moving with your mother
\nunder caverns of the sky, your measured steps, with every boot
\nare like the wheels of this great worm you ride. Peel another orange
\nrolling westward with the sun, \u201cand be a dear and get another Scotch.\u201d
\nEvery goddamn time, she wants another Scotch and water.<\/p>\n
In windows filled with passing scenes of wonders carved by water,
\n\u201cnature scenes\u201d as seen at 90 mph aboard a train,
\nand all she thinks about is, can I get another Scotch.
\nDays and miles slide below our wheels as I – and my mother –
\nas we rail against the passing time, the sunset turning orange
\nrevealing nothing of the truth of travel, save my dusty boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnew dat fancy footgear\u2019d do yer good,\u201d she pointed at my boots,
\npassing for her cowboy bit, and masking sounds of water.
\nLater I would find the bottle, empty, looking for another orange
\nand I\u2019d know this was the last trip, the last time, the last train.
\nClear now, sure, but time then all I knew then was the Train, this Mother
\neven of my mother, the mighty parent of the rails, who could scotch,<\/p>\n
if need be, perhaps the deepest wounds. Mother found her solace in her Scotch,
\ntrain be damned, she\u2019d say, \u201cthere\u2019s more spirit in the sole of my boot,
\nin the dirt in the sole of my boot, than this godforsaken locomotive,\u201d mother
\nsaid, between sleeping and drinking. But as we trestled o\u2019re the waters,
\npaths for sailors where they intersect across the country of the train,
\nI knew the pull of the Iron Road, I felt the call of rust, the orange<\/p>\n
that blooms from iron as it stands next to the water, the burnt orange
\ncall of rails left unused too long. The iron horse could never scotch
\nher pain – those cuts too deep for me to delve or comprehend – but the train
\nbecame my way, a chance for travel and escape, running to – and running from, to boot.
\nLooking back, I think she knew, as we gazed down at the water,
\nas the distance grew between us, that those rails were now my father, and my Mother<\/p>\n
couldn\u2019t help but be the engine, swiftly eating land beneath us, with my mother
\nkilling time and herself slowly, another bottle and let\u2019s peel another orange.
\nYouth is wasted on the young, they say, and Scotch and water\u2019s
\nonly for the old; acquired taste acquired by filing down your tongue and scotching
\nup your taste buds – her drinks to me had always tasted faintly of my boots.
\nAnother orange, another drink, another day a week a life upon the train.<\/p>\n
Ride this iron horse over land and over water, with my hand and with my mother,
\never knowing without knowing that these train tracks were my parents, rusted orange
\nlines meet at the horizon as I pour another Scotch, and peel an orange for her, to boot.<\/p>\n
I recall those days like yesterday, like last week, as if that run,
\nknowing it must end, had never. Like a memory wrapped in foil,
\neach day knowing that it will not last forever, or what’s the point?
\nLasting for all time would be a waste, would lose the joy.
\nYou never get a second take. You never get a second take.
\nTake a second to consider, as you turn your neck to crane<\/p>\n
out of the train car at the passing flatlands, rolling past a crane
\nbedeviling a fish, as cranes are wont to do. The fishes try to run
\neven once they’re caught up in the beak, but the birds enjoy their take.
\nEating like a bird, she used to say, and you, her perfect foil,
\nate like that crane, just to piss her off. You were her joy,
\nthat much is sure. You’ll say we both were, I know, beside the point,<\/p>\n
ever the peacemaker, weren’t you, and what the hell’s the point?
\nNever mind that now. No second chances now, as we watch the wrecking crane,
\nbig ball swinging toward that stupid flat we lived in without joy.
\nYou know you’re glad to see it go, memories now with nowhere left to run,
\nat last just dust, from dust and to, and good riddance to the lot. As a foil
\ngone at last, we are free to see ourselves as only us. It has nothing more to take.<\/p>\n
Returning to my point, you never get a second take
\nunless you’re living in the past, reprising and revising, scoring point for point,
\nemboldened by the notion you can somehow change the past and foil
\nwhosoever laid the plot against you, your cursed destiny. The crane
\nin the marsh with the fish in his beak does not re-run
\nthe mistakes of his past, the one that got away. He lives with joy.<\/p>\n
He lives for the moment, the simple life, memories of pain and joy
\ngone with the passing wind, the passing train. You never get a second take.
\nUnder all these words, a message left from her: Run!
\nRun like the world would chase you, run for the joy, run like the point
\nguard she loved to watch you play in high school. Run as if that crane
\nleveling the old place was coming for you next, and the only way to foil<\/p>\n
it was to run! Don’t look back. Keep your memories wrapped in the foil
\nnight provides, unwrapping them in dreams, but awake, run toward joy.
\nGod, you know I think that’s what she wanted us to know, as I crane
\nneck and psyche for some meaning in her final words, her last take
\non that train. You never get a second take, that was her point,
\nI think, and so the best life we can live is one we run.<\/p>\n
Someday again I’ll see that crane, wrapped up in my nightly foil,
\never leveling the flat where we would run from what was never joy.<\/p>\n
Seeing it again, a second take: I see your point.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You\u2019ve never really travelled, until you take the train over trestles, under mountains, moving with your mother under caverns of the sky, your measured steps, with every boot are like…<\/p>\n