Bright sky and warm sunshine. It feels like spring. A little tree on my back hillside has turned emerald green with all the rain. Velvety moss is growing on my bluff. That sounds like, but is not in fact, a metaphor. Really.
A rose has bloomed. Her heady scent wafted over to me as I pruned then fertilized my roses. I planted a geranium in a pot. Admired the lemon tree. Sat outside watching and listening. All week sunshine is forecast.
I'm still organizing and categorizing in my art room. This flat file recently came to live at Moss Cottage. Things that have been in plastic bins are being assigned new living quarters. So far everyone is getting along.
Sometimes a poem feels like a story. That's how this one felt. I read it slowly aloud, then again, and again. I decided it sounds better if you repeat the last 2 lines. I'm certain Theodore wouldn't have minded.
It reminds me of moving through the world. It reminds me of a train trip I never took. I might need to add a 49th thing to my list.
Night Journey
Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night.
To see the land I love.
I stay up half the night.
To see the land I love.
by Theodore Roethke
Forgot to say, I listen to Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans” and drift back in memory. It’s a wonderful song. “This train’s got the disappearing railroad blues”…
I have been in love with trains all my life. I used to see the City of New Orleans crossing a bridge in my hometown down south & I thought it must be the most glamorous and romantic thing in the world–to ride that train. Since growing up, I have ridden some trains and have found that most of them are not glamorous, but I still feel the romance that was once there. I haven’t ridden the City of New Orleans yet, but it is on my Bucket List…and soon…
Thank you for reminding me, Mary Ann. I love, love this poem.
Deborah D
glisteninthesunshine.blogspot.com
Oh yes, you do need to take a train trip! Amtrak’s Coast Starlight is a MUST! Take it from LA to Vancouver BC and back. You and the Starlight are a perfect travel fit! And when you go through wine country, there’s a wine tasting from all the vinyards in N. CA, Oregon and Washington!
Patio, Floors, Flatfile….Moss Cottage is looking pretty fancy these days! Dig it… when does the bed and breakfast open? 🙂
My first real “adventure” as a child was traveling by steam engine from St. Louis, Mo to San Diego, CA with my grandparents when I was 5 yrs. old. I can vividly remember that trip, right down to the sound of the rhythmic, clickety clack of the wheels on the track, the smell of it. The seats could be converted to face one another. That was the start of my love affair with trains. When I would come home for visits when in college in San Jose, I’d take the train instead of flying out of San Francisco since it was usually socked in with fog and major delays. I loved that mode of travel, the club car, the dining car, with the lovely silver acoutrements, the pullman car. I have not traveled via AmTrak but don’t think it carries the same type of seating and acommodations. Friends tell me that the compartments are barely big enough to turn around in. I’d dearly love to take the Trans-Canada trip one day.
The poem is a keeper. Thanks for sharing it with us, and I agree that repeating the last two lines is needed. What a lovely memory this has brought me today.
Oooooo ….love that flat file. My best presents are the “to Kate with much love from Kate” gifts. Always perfect!
Night Train is a beauty. I took the train from Chicago to Minot, ND a couple years back. The car stewart would play the harmonica as everyone settled in for the night. Everyone got quiet and the whole mood of the car would shift to something much gentler and slower.
Oh I love that flat file, it’s beautiful and causing some long distance envy. Then again so are the smell of your roses here in the cold, snow covered east coast of Canada 🙂
Oh my, I do love that flat file and what do you mean they don’t ship to Canada???? Drat. I shall have to settle for loving it in Moss Cottage. And hello, that poem? It’s a-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!!
susan, i have always wanted a flat file. this particular one is from this collection by martha stewart:
http://www.homedecorators.com/P/Martha_Stewart_Living_Craft_Space_Eight-Drawer_Flat-File_Cabinet/400/
it was a birthday present from mary ann moss to ME! i willy willy wuv it. mary ann moss also has 2 nice neighbors assemble it for her while she was at work. the instruction manual is 20 pages long and v.v.v. detailed. it arrived in 3 big boxes. nice neighbors also helped move those in the house!
OMG…so jealous…SRING…a girl can dream and live through others, I guess ;P Love the ROSE! Have a great night, fondly, Roberta
Where/how did yo score the flat file? And HOW did you accomplish the feat of moving it to and into your place??
When I see what is going on outdoors in your world, I rilly rilly rilly miss California. My lottery winnings would settle me there I think.
I once rode a night time train from Milan, Italy to Nice, France. Late in the night I looked out the window as we passed through small towns, asleep under the moon, and I watched the phosphorescent waves in the Mediterranean Sea. Unforgettable.
i don’t comment much but i adore your witty ways of being and read you as soon as i see your posts in my reader
you will love a train ride. i took one about four or five years ago across the US and love it, yes, it is my biggest pride to share that experience anytime i get a chance.
Mary Ann: go for it!!!
hugs
p.s. (i am planning another one –winter one, Canada border)