Train to Paris

The surprise as the dark blue morning sky gave way to fields of snow, “Il neige, Il neige!” cries a girl, the mother looks up from the newspaper to smile, not seeing the window, or the magical white watery sky, the dusted fields, and red rooftops.

Looking over the puzzle pieces backyards of houses and apartments, washing lines, and lawn chairs strung about, gnarled trees, church steeples and stone houses, making cities, like cut out squares of a Picasso painting, things unnoticed and scattered along the train tracks.

It was winter before I found you-

the shadows of white sky, sleeping fields,

and the phantoms of trees:

a passing train

of tired people,

two little boys sharing a seat

while their parents cling to the bars

and each others eyes,

with a loneliness.

The way the mother looks at her two sons

and up to greet her husband,

as if all this was worth it,

that they have given it all up.