Jennospot 37 CHoo CHoo Sky Train

Oi warned yew Oi was goin' ter put it up on moi blog. So 'ere it is. ready or not. 'Ave yew ever 'ad a ride on one o' them little trains wot goes up an' down a mountain on clickety cogs? Peter St John's lucky 'cos 'ee lives near the mountains where they've got them sorta trains. Well wot Oi want ter say is, that even if'n yew ain't never been on a mountain train, it don't matter all that much, 'cos if'n yew open yer mind ter snowy peaks all around, an now read Peter's poem, loike wot 'ees goin' ter do on Saturday evenin', yew can feel a bit o' wot it's loike. 'Old on tight, 'ere we go:

CHoo-CHoo Sky Train

Chuffing upward from the plain

Skyward climbs the charm-like train;

Pinion tic tac on the rack.

Watch-like, clock-like, mounts the track;

Mountain goat with iron wheels;

Rounding bends with squeaks and squeals;

Tunnelling the buttress through:

Just another cheese to chew.

The valley seems a toy-town place

Seen from heaven's peer-down space.

Droll-doll chalets, sprinkled sparse,

Spick upon the cow-cud grass.

Tie by tie, the rails astride,

Ladder up the mountain side;

Thinly-lean, a two-pronged harrow,

Swissly-clean and spindly-narrow,

Parallel they never meet

Except... up in the sky, to greet

A Gruyère moon; looming there

In the crystal Swiss-wine air.

Or at the sun, join in one,

Fusing from a switchback run

On an undulating way.

Pop-stop eardrums feel the rise;

We ride together to the skies.

No more trees; they're left behind...

High, the wind is too unkind.

Squeezing on a freezing bridge;

Ease along a heart-stop ridge;

Where peaks in this vicinity

Point us to infinity.

Down below all nods and plods:

At Heaven's portal we are gods.

And god-like, one would higher go;

Higher than the peaks and snow.

But... down one must towards the dust,

In wonder-lusting train unjust.

Entrusting Hope to justify

The return ticket from the sky.

The single strand now splits in two;

Divides One into me and you.

Down we rumble, charnel bundle...

Mindful as we earthwards trundle

Of rapture; but euphoria fails...

Fading on descending rails.

Below the air is thick.

From "Offshoots 11" published by the Geneva Writers' Group

www.genevawritersgroup.org

www.peterstjohn.net