Simple Desert Skies
for Tom Sydow
Train, Train, rolling wheels tumbling,
You beat steel beam and bravado.
Clank and cacophony are your contradictions
As syncopated earth rhythms sing your song.
Ground gives way. Iron trestles groan.
Mountains become tunnels, territories sutured by your timbre.
You dealt destiny in your glory days.
A train stop meant a town would transpire.
I hear your song, my brother, your coal born soot and smoke voice calling.
Eastbound I watch you, empty, into the endless ride home.
Nothing can save you as you near the horizon, nothing,
Where simple desert skies will swallow you whole.
“Photograph”