Canadian Shield

Following the tracks
riding back to their source
running east
through the railroad night
flatlands behind us now
I feel the stony roadbed
shudder
shift minutely
beneath me
over top of the bogs
that some visionary work crew
no one now remembers
a hundred years ago saw fit
to impose this iron will upon.

Following
through dark trees
steam frosted lakelets
precambrian granite hillsides
past the north shore
of eternity
to meet the winter morning
with an endless song
a belling chant
of steel wheels
behind the locomotive arclight
of this old-century vision.

Following
flakes
white
huge
swirl past the windows
fly momentarily
in the spinwheeling wake
of the last car
before settling
covering
our tracks.