Train, Rain, the Sea and Me

Perhaps the train . . . To make love on a train, never being in one place, moving to the rhythm of each available now and in that way, there would be no particular state to keep us, no hotel imperfection or forest floor forced to keep the memory of our betrayal in hungry mosses, only a series of moments, escaping homeless breaths, passing by with the landscape at 150 mph.

The train could announce our passage through village and farm and canyon and mountain – a hundred places on one ticket. A hundred faces looking back at one. The steam trumpet alive with mimicry. Who is at the helm? The whistle lets you know.

Or the rain . . .

It drives with an endless purpose, all day and all night, to the point where one struggles to hear anything else. The brook swells with the runoff it cannot swallow. It writhes towards the river, collecting bits of the world as it goes – souvenirs for later gifting. The lake, risen. An arching dam, dutifully holding for now. This cadence keeps nothing for itself as it plays for gravity, a sold-out venue every time.

And the sea . . .

How could any lover not speak of the sea? She is never rushed in her power, nor neglectful in her gentle lapping. Her baptisms sustain the repentant and her anger stirs the complacent from their hazy lull. And when one finally falls into her bed in sublime surrender, one finds room for the entire world.

In all these places and none of them, I finish what never began.