The 12:05

M A D I S O N _G R A Y | deep_SIGHT

Buffalo-clad debris on ice-storm chunks
Dance in the feeble tundra light -- gray;
They're only phantoms I see now,
But I could swear they were moving.

It's the emptiness and flatness of the silent expanse,
(Ah!, I see a cutter, frozen still -- black);
No motion outside as the mind shifts down
And inside we move in a thin steel line.

Rolling, wobbling, I hear the hiccup-hum of speed;
This undermusic of rails and unbreakable cut of noise -- white;
A rhythm weaving between two realms no composer could transcribe,
Or Orpheus describe.

Granaries and ice-ships frozen still,
Still they work on an irregular plane of land and snow -- blue.
Only a passenger chinks through the door,
And muffled voices down the car clattering --
I'm alone.

Chain-link fences do not move -- in opposition
they reposition their tangencies to aerial wires and earth-laid tracks -- silver;
Still the silent somber frozen Hudson River of ice moves on,
Still as telephone poles, trees, Hopper buildings, in black and white eclipse from frame to frame

And each framing thought now past speeds up-tempo beyond my cloudy streaked window of the moving train.