blackeyesunrise

You think you know what happiness is,
a big train filled with steam

and everybody’s jumping aboard
to some eager and relentless forward;

Or later,
it’s the unexpected return of a relic
from when constellations were
still young
and unaware of their places in the sky.

A waiting game then,
for those pistons to tremble in —
that far-off whistle
a little too far-off,
or that “later” just a little too late.

When you stepped onto the station’s wooded deck
there was the ostentation of finding something,
a destination maybe

But you never stayed.

One starless night
you wandered off those tracks
and there it was:
the better bright
of your own backward ways.

* * *

For those days when we’ve lost the ability to express ourselves in human terms.