The Travel Of Friendship

Every time the train goes by
Its telephone ringing rattles my windows.
My guts go like drumbeats, marching to battle.
I know that hopes raised, grown-up and full feathered
Are flown off and do not come back
Clutching the railcar sides
To leap off their laughter,
At this, my stationless back yard.

I should travel away from the practice of trains.
I would give up tomorrow that pulls me and stings me,
And tear out the windows that rattle with memories.

We live to be more than we are:
Battle's forgiving. Barbaric, it lets us acheive
Without moral-bound grief.
We're forgiven so long as it's equal,
Balanced, though brutal.

Look how a bird flies: in balance, so easily.
Why don't I fly like the trains that ignore me
And take out the windows birds always fly into
Battle's before me;
Inside me, the rattle of drumbeats.
Yet maybe a train, oh maybe,
Will bring back the balance of friendship again.

Nik Habermel, August 1998