New York City-Pittsburg-Chicago -New York City

last weekend, I spent 54 hours riding three trains

New York Pittsburgh Chicago Schenectady Poughkeepsie —
to see bits and pieces of a land
so many stories —
not even a city as capacious as NY
can call home — or embrace
or remind us of
a land so unlike the one I still, some days, call my own —
which- at least in my memory- has garden plots that brighten up walls
with cucumbers —
naively soaring up in late spring and pulpy peonies
but the land I saw was barren
with friendly trees
someone told me ‘it’s the land of free-range chicken
too’
[the hills I saw bore no chicken]
and motorcycles
auburn marshes
and churches lined up next to each other
[Elizabethtown or Johnstown, Pennsylvania]
friendly —
and not so friendly
[see those power plants orderly plopped
on our land]
lonely
quiet roads where trees and houses rest
express highways to a brave new world
[silvery skies everywhere]
but then you get out of there and catch vineyards in the sunset
see more of this land
and those magnificent trees —
wonder how the train will brave the snow
just like the reeds just like the reeds —
ducks & shipping containers
[they’ve been learning about us —
riding the cold waters, avoiding the boats in the Mediterranean]

[March 2019]

 Note on photographs: I took all the photographs below while riding the train from New York City to Chicago and then back to New York City. Source: Olimpia Mosteanu.