The Music of a Train
© Shelley Hansen
Winner, 2024 ABPA Victorian Bush Poetry Championship and Silver Brumby Award – Man from Snowy River Festival, Corryong, Victoria.
It begins in Perth. The rolling hills absorb its silhouette,
and the pipeline to Kalgoorlie leads the way.
Can you feel the locomotion
locked in endless rolling motion?
Can you sense the soothing sameness of its sway?
It proceeds through Avon Valley slopes. An eastward course is set,
while the sun’s red orb is sinking in the west.
Can you see the country changing,
growing arid, rearranging
its appearance at the scanty rain’s behest?
Golden wheatfields wave a welcome in a stately minuet
as the fall of dusk spreads blushes on the blue.
Can you sense the calm air cooling,
as the night is overruling
sunset’s last remaining efforts to shine through?
Moonrise swirls across the desert, an ethereal soubrette,
casting filmy veils to clothe the naked ground.
Can you hear the train’s rendition
of percussive repetition
that accompanies her dance with haunting sound?
Sparks ignite with metal friction from the spinning wheels’ roulette
as the lights of goldfield towns recede and fade.
Can you sense the darkness thicken?
Can you feel the tempo quicken
on the straightest stretch of rail track ever made?
There’s a wedge-tailed eagle standing like a chiselled statuette
as the darkness dissipates across the plain.
Can you see the dawn arising –
pastel-painted, mesmerising,
while he overlooks the breadth of his domain?
Sunrise splits the far horizon with a blazing coronet,
and the limestone land absorbs the spreading glow.
Can you see the saltbush clinging
to the bedrock outcrops, springing
from the surface of a place where no trees grow?
You will reach your destination, but you know you won’t forget
all the sights and sounds imprinted on your mind.
Night by night they’ll keep repeating
as your dreams are filled with fleeting
phantom images you cannot leave behind.
Time and circumstance may tinge the days ahead with some regret,
for you cannot see the future through a glass.
But as sands of life keep flowing
you’ll traverse them, always knowing
that the thunder of each turbulence will pass.
When your eyes grow dim and weary, in your heart you’ll hear it yet –
as a siren voice that soars in sweet refrain.
When the shroud of night is falling
you’ll discern the desert calling,
and the song will be the music of a train.
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