The Ligonier Railroad
for my grandfather, Irving Cunningham Felgar, December 9, 1909 ---
May 12, 1989.
The engineer spoke, and Europe settled
into its habit of running to greet him:
the smallest piquant mention
of the local deliciousness beside
that first stretch between Lisbon and Barcelona,
the disputed scraps of mountains among those
speaking German and French because
they couldn't settle on one or another,
and the fresh track he laid
on wagonwheels forged when e
bounced a north and east of Bremen.
When I was fourteen, he came back to the station
to close all discussions,
cut the South and the Midwest from my sleeve,
and unpaint them from the boxcars.
The next year, I started collecting boxcars,
picking up five of different fullness.
When I cross the trestles, they polish
into the cousins of fresh empires
which spring up with our name,
out-reclaiming the Bermuda grass
where the track won't end after tonight.
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