A Poem Inspired by Leonard Neufeldt's
"The tree with a hole in our front yard"

(Click here for text of Neufeldt's poem.)

          For Miller 3, and all the rest of you who hate the trains

Most in Goshen will tell it differently,
leaves falling, and holes
in the earth at the center of time
where you can find something.

For months the berating wail
was a blight upon our ears,
noise so obtrusive and undesirable
we didn’t notice until our beloved home
took us away from it to the roar of the engine,
rode away into the setting sun,
and let music in as though
to prove that the sound
was gone forever.

When a student knows that she’s missing something,
an unwanted din to her ears, and the music ceases,
she is aware of the newfound silence,
strange and empty, a din.
But the locomotives did not cease,
first one moved from their presence, and then the silence,
to its last, unseen horn.

Some of us wanted this emptiness
after miles had taken us from it,
trying to understand
why oh why they wanted this,
as if the train’s bemoaning or the music of its horn
was magic.  They are more like the trains
that they throw themselves before.



Dara Joy Jaworowicz
darajjgoshen.edu

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