Greenlane Poetry

Up Train

A breathless childhood day of squinting eyes
melted tar and handkerchiefs
fireweed on the siding banks and languid porters
sweating with the mail
a clatter of their crippled trolley wheels
a buzz of flies and bees
the distant hissing steam

Loudspeaker calls for who knows where
and silent groups of travellers open-mouthed
like dazed survivors of a blast emerge
from shade and into glare to scan the rails
that burning moment long ago is but a sepia
memory fixed one summer day
the day she went away