in passing
Somewhere south of Salem three men in coveralls and paint caps stood outside behind a long low building and waved as my train passed by, and then a small plane landed on a grassy airfield and the sky turned pink. It’s seven thirty seven and I’m heading to the Albany Oregon station, past lumberyards and car part piles and big round bales of hay. The whistle is blowing and we’re following a phone line, and how much longer will telephone poles be part of our landscape? Not much longer, I think.There’s a cow, now, and another set of lean houses wanting paint; there’s a windbreak of poplars. And now we’re along a two lane road. Gates are flashing red.
The guy across from me looks like a cross between John Cusak and my college friend Cindy’s college boyfriend, and the girl in front of me brought an armload of snacks back from the dining car.
I love the train, all the places it can take you and all the things you see getting there, and the crazy idea of building a set of tracks across a country. I love the way you can sit on your bike at an intersection staring up from under your helmet at the row of little faces zipping by in little window frames, and the way you can rock through town after town staring back.
posted by tortaluga @ 7:47 PM
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