A Special Train

DANIEL HOFFMAN

A SPECIAL TRAIN

Banners! Bunting! The engine throbs

In waves of heat, a stifling glare

Tinges the observation-car

And there, leaning over the railing,

What am I

Doing in the Orient?

Blackflies, shrapnel-thick, make bullocks

Twitch. The peasants stand

Still as shrines,

And look, in this paddy

A little boy is putting in the shoots.

He's naked in the sunlight. It's my son!

There he is again, in that

Field where the earth-walls meet.

It's his play-time. See, his hands are smeared

With mud, and his white

Back is flecked with ash, is seared

By embers dropping from the sky-

The train chuffs past. I cry

Stop! Stop! We cross another paddy,

He's there, he's fallen in the mud, he groans my name.