The point is that the paths will cross. The tracks stitched across the distance, smoke trailing the rails. The way the dreams trail us through our waking hours, the words buckle from the warmth of this lull upon your tongue. The way the song goes on from Tennessee Stud to Take the A Train, the burdens of the elders crossing each threshold and wilderness, voices raised above the din singing as we go again. Waiting for the bells and brights, the ruling of the cross arm coming down. Waiting for the words to warm up, the incantation all along.
Maybe if it’s only bells and whistles. Maybe if it’s just the system showing off. Never the wings that sweep us away, but the tread scraped upon this sojourn of tarmac and shoe leather. The legions loosed from Babel’s crash reaching out from the impact of the thought, the way each tongue might turn an ankle around a corner, the summoning and the banishment by the route of the breath. Every word born by the bones choked down your throat, this song another knot in the blood, a clanging at the impending pass.
The roads ring out long before we follow. The way is always weighted to the words. Arrival and departure, the going and the gone. Song after song to coax the lungs along, the melody framed by the beating of the feet. This rising of the road to meet you, this clattering along the tracks, the piece of you that still goes singing when the world wants to move it along. What waits at the station, where they’re going, when they’re leaving. The sound when we see it coming, the wail when we know it’s gone.
🛤🎶💚
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