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, expectation
and the mystery of trains, their cornucopia of destinations.