Cresting

By C.D.Courter

From "Tie and other poems"

                       Cresting



I was yet unborn when the age of steam
  died slowly to rusting cold
     stowed behind the backshops.
When the last ash grate was shaken,
  nodding a clattering farewell
          to the liquor of dinosaurs,
     no one yet knew me.
The last Shay in Tuolumne went cold as I gained my legs.
  My first bicycle rang doom
      to the engine adorning that city park.
But I hear tales,
          my father, my uncle,
     told in the soft glow of fading campfires:
Magnificent Brutes in Black, belching hot cinders,
          leaning hard against the load,
yet winning the grade.  

I am my father's son.  The blood and spirit of his,
                 and his father's time,
          live within as a faint echo
        that  bridges the years
  and fills my mind with deeply romantic images.
Theirs was an age of Men,
          Man Triumphant,
                     Unlimited,
               yet fragile,
     in an early grave.
A reflection is my mentor,
          an ideal,
     the very stuff of dreams.

This, then, is how I come to stand
     beside the cut, above the Summit rails,
          listening,  watching,   waiting.
Soon from the distance will appear
   another long and heavy train
     drawn by four modern engines -
       two stroke diesel,  turbocharged,
             electronically controlled.
    Even in the hazy yellow light,
       no one would mistake them
          for the living steam of yesterday,
  but shoulder to the traces,
twelve-thousand horses strong,
      digging hard into sanded rail,
   they are cresting the pass.  
The great motors howl,
      The earth quivers softly,
   The scent of sulfur stings my nose -
Does it get much better than this,
      this Vestige of a Dream?
  The sky might be red with sunset, but an orange moon 
peeks slowly through the eastern mist,
    fully fleshed,
        and singing.  
     The Romance has not died.
   The aging couple do not cease to love.
The siren call still rings true.
And tonight,
            among the withered trees of Old Summit,
         I will sleep soundly.
Between passings of the past
          rolling through the present,
     and on to the future unseen,
                                   I will dream.



                              C. D. Courter




(c)1990-2003 C. D. Courter
All rights reserved.
No commercial use allowed without
written permission from the author.