24/30

Sitting Meditation

The 5:15 walks slowly down the track
Straining with age and well-fed businessmen.
Above the piers, a drawbridge breaks its back.

Old gears groan like a martyr on the rack;
Steel girders hoist salute and two and ten.
The 5:15 works slowly down the track.

The sloop awaiting passage starts to tack.
The laundered captain ties a tricky bend
and pauses as the drawbridge breaks its back.

A sad conductor's voice speaks static fact
And busy sitters mutter, This, again--
The 5:15 asleep dead in its track.

Inside the woven pause, my mind unpacks
The day, the destination. The great end
of play ends in a draw. The bridge leads back

To primal nowhere. Life's the entracte,
Just slow enough to glimpse some childish zen:
I am not train, not passenger, not track.
Above the piers, a bridge unbreaks its back.