Rolling north on the Silver Star,
An endless olio
Of trees, street lamps, and telephone lines
Sweeps by me into the past.
A steepled church, a mounded field,
A Main Street straight out of 1902,
A small neon sign on a deserted bar
On the wrong side of the tracks,
A scintillant pool, two girls walking home,
A squat brick factory,
A red-flashing gate at a level crossing
Holding a patient semi at bay,
A tired herd of John Deere in a yard,
A wooden shed falling to ruin . . .
Jouncing, rattling, I race by them all.
Only the crescent moon keeps pace,
Sailing swift across the night sky
In perfect sync, until the Star slows
Imperceptibly, imperceptibly turns,
And Selene soars by me and out of sight.
Wow! More of that, please.
Captures the array of sights. I love “sweep by me into the past” and “Selene soars by me and out of sight”, in particular. But it’s all beautifully evocative.
Thanks, Jan. Last time I try to post anything from a moving train, though. Getting and staying on line was a trial. Initially, it either published a blank post with just the name or it lied and said it did. Somehow my “sweeps” turned into an ungrammatical “sweep” (which, oddly, is one of the lines you liked!). Getting it to make two stanzas out of it took about an hour . . .
But the happy news is, while far from the best, it’s not the worst poem I’ve ever written. Also interesting (to me), I slipped right into a quasi-ancient meter, the 4-stress line interspersed with occasional 3-stress lines (of course, kviðuháttr is strict about which lines are which, and I was lax on that count). And there’s much alliteration (again, I was not always following the rules). I felt a bit bad about putting Selene in a boat instead of on a horse, but the moon really seemed to me to be sailing last night, and no other Moon Goddess name would do.
Thanks so much — kind words from a poetess of your calibre are so encouraging!