TAKE A RIDE

The New England I see from this train
Was burned and beaten long ago, Sister.
It's snowing, and dark early, and it's snowing
Against the yellowed glass of the smoking car.
I see men have lit small brave fires
To keep their switches from freezing up.
There are miles of track to walk and check,
And when I see some men, their stern faces facing
The stars they have fired themselves,
I like to think the forehead and cheek
I have pressed against the cold glass,
Somehow are a small part of them.

The train speeds on.
Fields, when we pass fields, hunker
And suffer the snow, clotted and hardened.
They are so brown and black and whitening.
And when we knock past factories,
They are gutted factories, and have no roofs
Against the storm tonight. Only worn memories
Of better days, when neat piles of lumber and steel
Stacked themselves, each cord or ton patiently waiting
For their singular chances to make America great.
What cold and fallen stars, Sister.
Tonight, the train will not even slow for them.
It's enough to make me believe
That it's snowing in their yesterday's as well.

— Stephen Gibson