Don's Blog The Night Train 1-5-23

Here is another poem by Frederic Hildebrand.

The Night Train

Sometimes when I lie awake
and hear the piercing whistle, 
the night seems blacker,

the desolation of sorrow 
greater. I think of loneliness 
and the vast coldness that can

separate people. These thoughts 
spin like a child pedaling
a tricycle in endless 

circles. Then the train rumbles 
away and the deep silence 
returns. I hear her breathing, 

its peaceful, calming rhythm. 
The space of melancholy grows 
smaller and the spinning stops.

I think of the train reaching 
the next town, I embrace love and hope, 
and remember how fortunate I am.
Frederic Hildebrand, 2018
Published in Verse-Virtual, January 2018

We all have our own stories. Growing up we lived a block and a half from the tracks of the Burlington Route.

The train carried our commuting neighbors east into the city for work everyday. Going west

the train went through Omaha to Denver and on to the pacific coast.

Through the years I watched firemen shoveling coal into the steam engine and later on travelled 

aboard the magnificent Denver Zephyr. The trip into the city became magical with double decked 

passenger cars. 

In my bedroom  in the dark of the evening I could hear the radio as my folks listened to their favorite programs. 

I always had a calm frustration as the train came through and I could not follow the thread of the radio show. It was

worse when a long freight train passed by. And yet when a visiting friend would ask, "How can you stand that 

noise all the time", We would say,"What noise".

We used to put pennies on the track to flatten them out. One day the train hit the family dog. Several summers 

I took the train to Colorado to camp. It was extraordinary and without our parents. We went into the city to board the train

and passed our house heading west. We hung out in the lounge car, ate in the dining car, had our own births in the sleeping car.

I think you  can understand that were I a poet my story of the 'Night Train' would differ from Hildebrand.