Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BLACK TRAIN, by THOMAS MCGRATH


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BLACK TRAIN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I'm still struck (as when I saw my first pasque-flower)
Last Line: And the empty cars wait for the black train to head inland
Subject(s): Railroads; Railways; Trains


I'm still struck (as when I saw my first Pasque-flower)
Now, at a single soft shoot of daffodil arching, slow,
Through the face of the rock-like ground and on: up: through
The flinty shingle of March-blown sleet and snow
On the winter-wasted ice-bound lawns of Milwaukee Avenue.

Spring was a million adjectives: once: one noun:
All green and milky: furry as pussy-willow . . . sweet . . .
As the blood of maple. But the gleamy stealth of gold in the river-winding wood
Blurs quicksand or flood. And spider-silk blinds and binds.
Then mullein, purslane, milfoil, milkweed, dandelions . . . tiresome.

Summer wearies me . . . Endless the combers of wheat: gold:
Endless in amber distance. And the endless dance of the aspenleaf
Tires. No new word in the mile-long rasp and rattle: endless
Corn-gossip. The grasshopper burdens and the humblebee is no friend.
But I'm glad the homeless sleep warm in this landlords' season.

Autumn tires and conspires: draws forth its druggy water
Where the dreamy souls of strolling poets drown, slow,
In their little ecstasies. Troll fire seams the north woods:
Ghosts of goatsbeard false bird's nests of Queen Anne's lace
Tourists divining with goldenrod beside sluggish rivers . . .

Stern winter frowns. A stiffening mortal rigor
Sets flowerheads rolling and the crowns of summer fall.
Moral as death, a white stealth, cold, beards all the grass
That robes, on sunny thrones in its last and desperate green: false.
False-foxy all: the green of autumn and the gold of spring.

I've lived inland too long. It sickens me --
Land islanded. Winter may harden. But spring unties
All icy strings. Fools'-gold of summer. Treacherous trollopy autumn...
No. Enough of this comic death-dance. I long, in mortal longing,
For the shine and silence, the flash and wallop of the sea.

Somewhere in that sea, still, on a tide-bound salt siding,
Hunched, a black train halts, sighing and clanking, slouched, crafty,
Breathing like a rusty pump and waiting for bills of lading.
The telegraph office clicks its beads and abacus, ticks and chatters,
And the empty cars wait for the black train to head inland.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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