Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOCOMOTIVE, by MILLICENT SHINE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOCOMOTIVE, by                    
First Line: Snow hushed the earth: awhile
Last Line: We went shuffling on through the snow.
Subject(s): Locomotives; Winter


Snow hushed the earth: awhile
We had been able to draw a far, chill line
With distant looking eyes, but now
That clarity was gone; white roofs were fading
Into loose other white, as snow
Choked up the air again.
We plodded on, and beat our stinging hands,
And blew great breaths: Say
This is real winter weather!

We left the road to cross the railroad track,
And then a sound
We had been feeling in our throbbing bodies
Crept up and reached our ears.
We stopped a moment
To gaze down shining rails that cut a narrow
Track through the muffled dusk.
We looked and looked.

The throbbing
Grew to a rhythmic quaking at our feet,
And then a glimmer
Of snow cloaked yellow light came swiftly sliding
Out of the gloom; an instant only,
And it was glowing,
Concentrated flame about the throat
Of black steel power,
A ruthless power that pressed against the rails,
And rushed along.

A swish, a rumble,
Of quick, staccato thunder -- the black power
That overflowed the rails till nothing else
Existed while it passed -- that power
Was gone, with a queer whispering sound
Like wingbeats of a bird.

The locomotive left a frozen, astonished earth,
And a greater
Loneliness than there had been before.

We looked about us,
And hastened across the tracks; I said
Hurry -- it's colder than it was!
We went shuffling on through the snow.





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