went on an old train
today
from Canberra’s
sole and farcically-tiny railway station
should have been
steam but a last-minute substitution
rendered it
‛heritage diesel’, an old shunting engine by the look of it
you could actually
open the window
an old sash-type
window
and the carriages
squeaked less than the ageing XPT
quite a few oldies
aboard
oldies running it
too
like being inside a
big caravan
though the wooden
fittings had been
replaced by plastic
fakery in the seventies
we learned inter
alia
that Fyshwick
the industrial
suburb we passed through
had been a P.O.W.
camp
for Germans in the
First World War
that the folks in
the Headquarters Joint Operations Command that we also passed
worked underground
that the carriages
had once served as rail-ambulances
saving wounded
soldiers from the added injuries caused by Sydney’s wartime roads
some of which were
made with half-sunk wooden blocks
went on an old train
today
wind blowing through
for air-conditioning
shot through three
tunnels
more leisurely arrow
than bullet
so bicycle-slow on
the hills
you could almost
pick the wildflowers
and so noisy the
cows ran from us
people waved as we
passed
the horn was tooted
the kids loved it
went on an old train
today
it goes to
Bungendore village every third Sunday
somehow the journey
delighted
more than the
destination
How great that is, Robbie. Some fella who won some prize the other day once wrote that "it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry." Then he sang it. So many of us are riding together on that train today. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rob. I did feel this poem could do with more sarcasm and bite — and maybe I'll get that elusive Nobel one day!
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