Love Train

Photo:  "Love Train of Danny & Mary"  David Graham

Thanks to Hal Johnson for inviting me to drive the Truck for a month.  My team of ace correspondents has begun to comb the nation & the world (& even some undisclosed locations) for interesting material to present here while I've got the wheel.  Meanwhile, for my first official post of the month, here's a recent poem from my own travels through time & space.  

The Love Train of Danny & Mary

Amid the jagged gang tags and stenciled black numbers,

mysteries of load limit and half-peeled cautions, their goofy pink heart

looms large: Danny and Mary in a bright mild arc across the valentine,

and then the kicker: 35 Yrs.  Am I to imagine a sixty-year old dude

with can of spray paint hopping a chain link fence and skulking

through the midnight train yard looking for just the right boxcar?

Mary at his side advising on color and composition?   White letters

shadowed in red across the gray functional steel of the car

as it crosses the noon street in Ripon, Wisconsin.  Who knows

where Mary and Danny may be today, or where they began

their journey, or when?  All we know is that here they are

crossing the country now, stitching each small town to the next

with their love solid as steel and steady as tracks.  I used to think

carving names on an oak or maple was the most beautiful vow,

marriage of the timeless with season and weather, yet now I see

you can marry the future in other ways.  And no, I don't mean

death, and certainly not divorce.  I mean Danny and Mary

chugging across America for at least thirty-five years, all

their cargo safely stowed, their two hearts one, drinking

long toasts of diesel in the spring air, announcing themselves

at each crossing with a loud, still fervent burst of horn.

--David Graham