Night Train Passing

Westward-bound rails on the Wyoming plains

When I was a young boy, I lived in a home nestled amidst woods and fields. Not far from our home, a rail line wound through those woods and fields. It was still the era of coal-fired steam engines and often, late at night, long after my mama tucked me into bed, I would lay slumbering and hear the distant sound of a steam engine chuffing down the rails pulling a long train of rail cars, its whistle wailing in the late-night air. That memory has stayed with me over the years and it was the memory that later came to mind when I wrote this poem during a troubled period of my life; at the time I questioned, “Where is my life going?”

NIGHT TRAIN PASSING

Shrouded in the night,
a distant, solitary train
wails a soulful lament,

As it follows a single light
through wind and cold and rain
on its rock and steel ascent.

Where did this journey begin,
how many miles will pass,
where will it finally end?

Passing through the night,
a distant, solitary train
wails a soulful lament.

^{Thomas Fideler}