Thursday, August 12, 2010

Union Pacific #9

Somewhere amongst star shards &
                        volcanic outcroppings I couldn’t
see against a 5:00 am November
sky the fm evaporated

it was east of Jordan Valley it

didn’t happen all at once the
signal dispersed across 
depths & distances & ghostly
sagebrush in the headlights almost
100 miles from daybreak
                        a diner’s unlit windows
dark in the darkness

fractured constellations broken yellow
line invisible
                          cattle moving across the rangeland
a sodium light a semi truck’s
enormous exhalation
          a broken yellow
line the star shards south a-
bove California a
          stone pinging the windshield a
              star fragment chip the
distance between constellations
I could hold that in my hands


Jack Hayes
© 2010

[To see other poems in this sequence, please click on the "UP Poems" label]

8 comments:

  1. This is really cool because when you read it aloud you get that train-along-the-tracks feeling and it's so emotional with its ups and downs and jigs and jags.
    More! More!

    Kat

    word verification is "dismati" (a very sad rice, I'm told)

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  2. Another poignant reflection on movement and the passage of time. Love the last lines!

    (Kat, hilarious "dismati" definition!)

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  3. Also, like when you are on a train watching the landscape go by, images come in self-contained little packages, strung out along the way.

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  4. Hi Kat, Audrey & Alan

    Kat: Thanks! Of course, the narrator in all these poems is in a car (headlights, windshield, fm radio, etc) but the Union Pacific trains make an appearance in several. & "Union Pacific" is kind of a "keyword." Love "dismati," btw!

    Audrey: Thanks! & extra special thanks for posting this on FB!

    Alan: Many thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

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  5. distance between constellations
    I could hold that in my hands

    I love that - and the idea of star fragments and small stones on the same scale. Also loved the otherworldliness in general - as in the opening lines.

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  6. Hi HKatz: Thanks for that--it's interesting that both you & Audrey pointed to the ending, because I had misgivings about that. Eberle also liked the ending. I guess it must be ok! Thanks again!

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  7. I like the broken, fragmented vastness of this one, John. Beautiful.

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  8. Hi Willow: Thanks! So glad you liked it.

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