Poem: Sushumna

The route has already been railed, each station as plotted as Grand Central constellations. The terminal’s roots as old as a willow’s: tangled and tunneling, tangled and pushing, pushing up, and up, and up until the train pierces the earth, is born onto the riverbank, on to Riverdale where the rush and gurgle of water matches the hush of steel wheels sweeping against the track, its fissured planks fueling through Glenwood, a steady sun beaming through windows and warming the quiet light, the quiet calm of knowing what comes next. Greystone: a green place to pause, a green place for doors to open, for the first wafts of forsythia and crocus to filter in, un-struck and lingering through Ossining, where the railways sing as three southbound trains drum rhythmically past, fast as a Cold Spring waterfall but seen clearly: faces content with newspaper veils, faces propped upward and dozing, faces witnessing the trust of routine, this trust in transportation. And yet, the time will come to gather and exit, to gather and arrive, to stand in platform stillness while the train steams through Beacon and praise the river for doing nothing more than ripple against the sky.