Sunday, 10 May 2009

• Can't Stop the Train

  For Levanna, whose poems don't get enough comments on here. I always told myself I would post something of a more poetic nature this year, and here it is. This scrap was lingering around in a folder, and so I decided to toss it out until I can make a video.
  

  We are in a tunnel, and the water is dripping, always dripping, rhythmically and emphatically. I move around so that it will not torture me by its incessant contact with my head. It was dark there at first, very dark, and I still don’t know how I found you. I have always been here, although I have heard the voices of visitors at times. But I heard the sound of gravel being disturbed, and called out, and I heard a brief greeting in reply. I moved closer and called out again, and since then we have alternatively been calling out to one another as we draw closer. The gravel and the pits make it hard to hurry, and I am not sure I want you to find me too quickly. Who knows what form I will find attached to that melodious voice? But behind the guardedness of your voice, I sense hope, I sense life, and I sense something that was never a part of me but has always been missing.

  It’s lighter in the tunnel now, and it scares me. I can see your outline, and I see you are drawing nearer. But it is not the sun that is shining in this tunnel. I had long since given up all hope of that. No, it is the train’s light, already starting to pierce the darkness. It is coming to drive us apart. We will each have to run for opposite sides of the tunnel to save ourselves, and the link between us will be forever broken. I try to yell out “It’s just a rabbit, don’t worry!” and you giggle, but stop quickly. I realize that you know more about this tunnel than I thought, that you too have been in the tunnel for longer than I knew. The knowledge makes me want to rush to embrace you, paying little heed to the pits and caverns in the way. I will cover your ears so you won’t hear the train’s whistle, I will bury your head in my chest so you can’t see the bright light, I will…

  But now I can see your face as the light draws nearer, and I see there can be no lying to you about the train. One day another visitor will come into the tunnel, and there will be no train. We will hesitatingly lunge for each other and then walk out of the tunnel side-by-side into the light. But tonight the train will drive us apart, and love can’t stop the train. Hurry! This push I give you to knock you out of the train’s path is the only contact we will share. May your next tunnel be train-proof.

  CHOO-CHOO!

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