poem about a tram ride

poem about a tram ride

By Parker S. Taylor

Those sometimes I’ve pondered

if she ever wonders

what wonderful wonders

I’ve seen as I’ve wandered:

the black seas of black salt

      (the streets of the midtown

      with rain puddles—wet brown,

      and buildings like basalt);

the jungles of grey stone

     (though tropical, so cold,

     and beautifully there holed

     the flowers of white bone);

the forest of dead trees

     (the people at bus stops,

     like petrified, stiff crops,

     stood still in the soft breeze);

the winding old river

     (of carbon-steel tracks, there,

     on which fly trains—“Now, where?”

     they ask, “my young traveler?”);

where chill, crashing streams roam

     (the night winds, so lonesome,

     that I am the flotsam:

     still riding the way home.)

Those long ferries homewards—

she rows in chill, still time:

perhaps she still thinks I’m

just travelling “awaywards.”