Don't You Hear That Whistle Blowin...

dreamed 1974/9/6 by Denise Levertov

The 4 a.m. freight comes pounding and shaking through                                                                                  the fall night and I go to the Middle Door to watch,             through the plain glass that has             stained glass around it, pressing my forehead against the pane, and Steve hurries along to look too--for he's out of Appalachia, the lonesome romance of the rails West is in his bones; and Richard comes close behind, gazing intently                                                                         over my shoulder-- out of the Midwest and the rails West are in his blood, and our friend Bo is at this very moment hoppin in Oregon                                                                                    to pick pears; and I seem to smell iron and rust, an animal smell,                                                                            red and dusty, even through the glass that's steaming up with our breaths. So I start to open the door, to hear the last cars and the                                                                                    caboose louder and the sound of going away, and to see the stars, and I want you, Mitch, to step out with me into the dark garden, for you're standing back of me too, taller than anyone; but as the cold air comes in I turn toward you and you're                                                                                       not there. Then I realize I'm waking up: the train really is going by but the Middle Door's back in my childhood, not in America, and there's no one in the house but you and me, you asleep beside me in bed, and soon you'll have left and this moment of dark boxcars just visible under the paling stars, a train of looming forms from                                                                               faraway states lurching through the edge of Boston, is just the beginning of a long train of times I'll turn to share a vision with you and find I'm dreaming. --Denise Levertov--