Poetry Friday is hanging out today with Jim at Hey, Jim Hill.
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| My father-in-law and son, a long time ago, final run! |
My husband’s father was a railroad engineer for Union Pacific in the last years of his long railroad career. We now have a number of different train memorabilia in our home because of him. My husband talks of many trips his family took on the trains. It sounds like such fun and I am also nostalgic about train trips after reading Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express and watching old movies where love and intrigue reside on the rails. I grew up with others taking those trips and took one myself, with my Girl Scout troop, to Washington D.C. Imagine the hours of giggling, hardly sleeping there and back! I am grateful to our leaders who sacrificed their time and maybe sanity by taking us.
It’s a delight when I find prose and poetry about train travel, I read the words, and sometimes find them memorable enough to read to my husband. Lately, on a website called The Daily Poem, a particular poem appeared with such rhythm and sweetness that I wanted to share it with you, and of course I shared it first with my husband.
I also found a little about Alicia Stallings, who is still writing and has published several books of poetry. She is known as a classical poet, has translated from the Greek and lives with her husband and son in Athens, Greece. More poems and a short bio can be found at The Poetry Foundation.
Lullaby Near The Railroad Tracks
by Alicia E. Stallings
Go back to sleep. The hour is small.
A freight train between stations
Shook you out of sleep with all
Its lonely ululations.
The rest can be found here.