Tags
Australian bush poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, poem, poetry, sleepers, Traditional Australian poetry, Trans Australia railway
They have no kin upon this treeless plain,
Yet here now lie the bodies of their dead.
They, in the forests far away were slain;
Now each one sleeps upon its gravel bed.
Half buried, in their ranks they bear the rails,
As east to west the belts of iron tie.
With smoke and steam leviathan prevails,
And in its wake the ways of ages die.
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Sad, the demise of trains… but such great imagery to express this!
There are a couple of narrow guage railroads not far from where we live in New Mexico kept alive by tourists. They have gotten too expensive for us to afford, but I still love to go to Durango, Colorado, the Durango Silverton line being the closest to us, and watch as the big engines steam into the station. It feels just like your poem expresses, a leviathan of another age and another, more romantic time. Good poem, Dennis.