Leaves On The Track

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I don’t usually believe in Fate, but every now and then, something happens, and I wonder ...

(Photo taken from the Internet)

LEAVES ON THE TRACK

I first glimpsed him on a railway station,

he on one platform fretting about a late train,

me doing much the same on mine,

both of us making time for glances in the rain;

his hair was the colour of a summer storm,

eyes, shining like leaves in the late afternoon,

lips as full and red as cock robin’s breast,

and kisses as feisty as midsummer raindrops

rehearsing a lively tune

I felt as if I’d known him all my life

though he was but a complete stranger to me;

it was like taking off in a time machine,

revisiting every lovemaking in a gay life history;

the rain turned to tears for lost loves

though its freshness on my skin so exhilarating

it took me through cruel hoops

without fear, and me a one-time victim

of its storytelling

The roar of his train raged in my ears

(the cries of thwarted lovers through centuries)

then my train arrived, screaming at me

to get real, be rational, dismiss foolish fantasies;

boarding the train, a hand on my arm

made me to turn around but I saw no one there

only a sad, lonely, empty platform

much as a poet might describe a fairytale

stripped bare...

I flung open the door and jumped down

(just seconds before your train took off with a yell)

only to be tossed on a sea of waving hands

as if I were object and subject of a witch’s spell;

Ah, but I had forgotten about white magic

and how hope will always get the better of despair,

like the best poems and fairytales

conspiring to make us miss our trains,

keep us there

It didn’t seem long before we caught another train,

looking forward to the time we’d be together again

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2011

[Note: From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012 (without photo)]