Clickety-clack, clickety clack

Wonder if I can get off or get back
Cold, Hard, Steely
Warmed by the sun,
Racing, embracing
For the most part,
A-takes people where they’d rather not-B
Cold Hard Steely
The fresh ones ask questions
Do I need a ticket?
Eyes avert
Heroine roped to the tracks
that mark her arms.
Roast beef on first class silver
Under class waits in line
Mothers pace at the station,
That terminal place.

Joy and Sorrow
Laid out side by side
Slatted together by
Oiled hopes and dreams,
Sunflower fields flash by on right
Greyed weather wood is left
The Prairie Dog Express
Steam rollered over by frequency
Bullet Train, the Red Lizard, The Orient Express

Derailed men divert trains with grandsons
Where styrofoam tunnels are light
Cold hard steely
Next stop, last stop.

Clickety …. Clack
Clickety Clack

This poem stemmed from a conversation with a neighbour who lost her husband and a few years later her twenty-something daughter. The mix of Joy and Sorrow in each life, and sometimes the sorrow brings the scales down to despair. Yes, there are references to numerous struggles that we face while on this train of life.
The Joy is that Hope conducts.