The Hiawatha

Squat and fleeting farmhouses

Across the window of a moving train.

They are markers of a bygone era,

Of a past that was not mine.

In a depot of a town

Between the city I live in and another,

Molded wood of a stationhouse

Has given way to masonry

And effacing in my mind

Urban legends of molded wood.

In the ensuing hour,

When sights and anticipation meet

In the Quiet Car of the train,

I pass the sedge of wind-blown pastures,

Then well-tended lawns in late November.

Soon, rusted factories

In an unscrubbed part of the city

Come into view with its

Imagined smell of smoke.

I rub my eyes of sleep,

Looking up into the gleam of glass

And its reflection below

In the river of life.