April 27: Poem 26

2:28 (a.m.)

by M. Desing

 

At 2:28 (a.m.)

I lie awake in bed

hearing the gentle thunder

of a cargo train,

rolling over rime-covered fields

and ice-glazed paths

 

Thinking how lucky the engineer is

to be alone with his thoughts

at 2:28 (a.m.)

with miles of track before him,

 

His future lay out

in neat rows of wooden struts

at right angles to steel track

drawing him on

 

To infinity.

Notes

Another cheat day. I didn't think ahead to how creatively draining it would be to talk about poetry with students all day and then try to get fired up to write a poem... so here is one that I wrote before, but will be using with students this week. I am completely and totally breaking the rules I established for this project - but it's still a poem I wrote, so at its heart it is in line. Furthermore, I only have about six more decent poems in my notes anywhere, so at worst ten of the poems for a year of poetry would come from my archives, which means (even if I miss a day here and there) I would produce 300 or so original poems... which is a lot.