Night Train to Rome

I went to bed in the night of a city,
with light and noise and movement constant,
tossed and turned and slept and woke and slept again.
Unseen engines rolled the scenery past
and gathered it beyond my sight.
Throughout the night towns strobed past my window
but I passed unknowing.
Sleep held me in its echoing grip until I had enough and left her.
To wake to a different sky of delicate serried clouds.
Terracotta coloured roofs and pastel walls,
arches of dubious value but certain grace.
Hills rolling into mountains of green,
marked by cypress cryptography
pointing the way to ruined villas
while others waited timelessly behind forgotten light.
Roofless towers spoke of power or poets or dust and produce
and lines of supported trees fanned past,
sprocketing a film that would have surprised no ancient Roman,
until the power lines gently nudged the landscape
into today.

Motorgyre
Killarney, Co Kerry,
Ireland
motorgyre@googlemail.com
http://motorgyre.wordpress.com/