Tag Archives: trains

Old year’s resolutions

And so, the year draws to a close. Early this year, I made some resolutions, as did many people. And, like many people, I strove valiantly to keep them, and lost.

I did, however, write something almost every day, and end the year with just shy of 270 works of poetry, some of which are pretty good, if I do say so myself. I’ll be publishing them – most of them, anyways – on Lulu in a few days. And I wrote one short story, which I think is pretty good. I think I’m going to try to get it published – like, really published.

I took a lot of photos, but not every day.

And I read a lot, but spent the last half of the year on War and Peace, which I’m still only half-way through.

As for cooking, well, three out of four isn’t so bad.

I was also thinking this morning about whether it’s more important to me to make a bundle of money, or have lots of people read what I wrote. Since making a bundle of money seems to be nothing but a fantasy (I’ve sold a total of ONE copy of Trains.), and I really do want people to read what I’ve written, I’m going to make the PDF version available for free, under a CC, attribution, non-commercial license. You can get it from here.

More trains

trains2
Played some more with the trains this weekend. After sitting in the attic for 20 years, the tracks have taken some time to get all cleaned up, but I think that everything is back in perfect working order again, and the trains are running smoothly.

As you can see from the pictures, both sets of twins enjoyed it immensely.

Christmas Trains

Christmas Train

We set up the trains. I dig trains.

Trains, chapter IX
Christmas
October 1, 2007

At about that time every year
the trains came out,
Santa Fe and Rock Island
with their coal cars,
and Smuckers’ jam cars,
and the tiny red caboose
chugging among the
H.O. gauge houses and cows.

Taking up half the living room
and two thirds of our days,
these were as much the
harbingers of Christmas as
trees, or presents, or
the inevitable and pointless
wishes for snow —
a snow that would
never come in the
heat of the East African December,

The smell of ozone,
the whir of the engines,
the flash of the tinsel
as it fell on the tracks,
popping and sparking.
And the
circling, circling, circling
of the engines
as they counted down
the days to Christmas.

And although, without fail,
a cow wedged in the tracks
sent the train
tumbling from the table,
and perhaps a sobbing kid
running from the room,
it wouldn’t stay derailed for long
and would soon be, again,
rushing around on its
brisk journey to nowhere.

Across the years
electric trains mean Christmas
and Christmas means electric trains,
even as they sat
collecting dust and rust
in boxes somewhere in an attic darkness,
and I raced my own
circles ’round the sun.

This year, though,
they’ll resume their rightful place
as center pieces of the season,
and, once again the
same age as my kids,

I’ll watch them
rush around and around
and behind them pull
a full load of memories.