Only Baltimore

Weary travelers look down not out
At smartphones
At iPads like this one
The train stops
No station, just stops
I look out past my daughter through the smeared window
Only Baltimore I think

But before me are lines of tiny connected houses
Some kept, some not
Radiating away from my window
Like the spokes of a wheel on a forgotten wagon
Too long in a field out behind a rundown barn
Passed by time some spokes broken and jagged
Some almost new
It's only Baltimore

There are plains here before me
Waving fields of grass in irregular rows
That dart to and fro along abandoned concrete sidewalks
Growing deeply and unmolested by steel
Where workers used to walk to jobs
In factories
But that was long ago
Here in Baltimore

Other buildings here too
In the distance ivy shows against red brick
A factory, it's insides awash with light
Visible through massive unbroken windows
The light pours in through a completely open sky
To the workers below
Here in Baltimore

The workers are green and sturdy
They stand in clumps and masses on the factory floor
Their leaves and branches reach towards the light
They grow uncaring as to where they are
Seeming not to notice their place of work
They will work anywhere
Even in Baltimore






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Quiet Car

The quiet car causes one to ask questions
Like, whose definition of quiet are we riding under?
There is noise

The steady roar of the air conditioning
The muffled rumble of steel wheels on steel rails
A sneeze
A cough
The blunt tap of finger on touch screen
A rustle from a paper or magazine

It allows one to sleep
Or to think
About the Japanese man across the isle
Or his Japanese wife
I think they're Japanese
And where they are taking his parents
Or her parents

Is it a day in the city?
If so, which one?
New York?
Philly?
DC?

They are both older than I
And as I sit in the quiet car I wonder
Can they still hear the noises I do?

Can you?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Amtrak