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Overture to a Dance of Locomotives
I
Men with picked voices chant the names
Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.
The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.
Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.
A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock;
discordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated-
two-twofour-twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma'am!
-important not to take
the wrong train!
Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but-
Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow-inviting entry-
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till-
The whistle!
Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!
Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights-
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!
-rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
The dance is sure.