Riding backwards
Seeing what was
Appropriate for a memoir scribbler
So, have roadside trees
Changed instantly
Shedding leaves in Florida Autumn?
Clouds are following me
Heading North
Playing air ukulele for amusement
Since train WiFi silent
Refusing to share
The outside world
Just me
In a womb room
Now chugging through
A little-known station
In Denmark, South Carolina
Last year, first time in a train roomette
Was magical
Besotted with the tracks
Circuitously leading locomotives
Through the East Coast’s elevation*
True, I’d learned to play
“City of New Orleans”
On the ukulele
And oh, those chords
And words
Seduced me into forsaking airplanes
Now, it’s like footprinting through
Scattered stardust
Alone on a Magician’s stage
As if he’d hypnotized and then left me half alive
Alone
An abandoned
Dusty old platform
House lights on
Revealing faded curtains
Sprung springed seats
Alone
Looking through the large-view window
Recognizing the same-as-last-year flooded
Roadside thickets
Litter scattered among the deciduous trees
As we race between Rocky Mount, NC
And Petersburg, VA
Gazing at trucks piled with logs
Mongrel architecture of cottages
Half Great Depression rural facades
Hiding a post-1960s add-on
When wardrobes grew
Requiring more closet space
Plural bathrooms needed
To accommodate the cult of the
Nacirema**
Suddenly Washington, DC
Water marked overpass walls
Dripping with graffiti
Resembling a vellum book
With aging endpapers
Hidden shelf, second hand shop
Marbled designs disguise
Deterioration
Do I feel less enthusiastic
Because last year
The sun rose in Virgo,
This time in Libra?
Was it because last year
The virgin voyage was fresh,
This time it is post-honeymoon?
Was it because I was a year younger?
Wish it was like the inaugural trek
Year after year
In life
In love
In mystery…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: heritage railroad
*Compare to last year’s poem, same train trip https://poeturja.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/elevation-but-still-wouldnt-swap-my-swamp/
**American spelled backwards (term used in Sociology and Anthropology depicting specific behavior)
poeturja 