Three Poems by Tim Hawkins

Freight

I tried for years to write of trains,
to catch the rhythm of their churning wheels
in the uneven flow of words,

to put one word past another
like endless tracks stealing across
three vast and stubborn continents,

to remember your hand in mine
across the eternal moonscape
distance of the western states, and watch
your true face appear by morning light,

to yearn to be with you, apart
from the wayward Midwestern looks,
in some private rolling space
where longing is no destination.

I tried for years to find the words
to comfort the sobbing German girl
whose stolen bag is politely returned
while the polite train waits, and the
culprit is shot on the bloodstained tracks
in the remoter wastes of Xinjiang.

I tried for years to stop the wailing
of beggars as we slow to take on fuel,
then speed up again through a nightmare
haze of midnight villages,

to bring to life the dying child
thrust half-through an open window
by her screaming mother stumbling along
the uneven tracks of Varanasi.

For many years now, a good long while,
I have ridden the lines of commuter rail,
where I read the front page twice a day
and the headlines of Sports and Metro.

But the trains roll by, all night long
to the infinite freight yards of Chicago,
and shake my house to the basement walls
as I toss and turn in my sleep.

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