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DAEL ALLISON
Passing
Through
- Not born there, won’t die there; a
flatland railway town
- for passing through, but it stores my
childhood’s measure –
- leaf-smoke scent of autumn, frost,
paddock mushrooms, brown
- splintered summer landscapes still
untouched by mind’s erasure.
- There I grew secure, though testing the
elastic bonds of home,
- questing boundaries, lured by
shunting’s shrill complaint to comb
- the railway’s web of silver tracks.
Thrilling noise, suffocating
- cumulus of scalding steam blasted from an
engine’s yawning stack
- avenging gobs spat from high vantage, the
overpass reverberating.
- And nights: elemental fear of prey seized
in that hollow shriek-black
- swoop when mopokes scarify the dark;
dazed horror of things unseen
- abated by the rail’s percussion
song, the diminuendo siren scream.
- What promise!
Time and distance, change, dreams, expectations
- and the mystery
of trains, their cornucopia of destinations.
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