"Kooser called from Nebraska to say he'd found..." by Jim Harrison

Kooser called from Nebraska to say he’d found

a large cinder on a long walk along abandoned

country railroad tracks, a remnant of steam

trains, the cinder similar to those our fathers

shoveled from coal furnaces in the early winter mornings

before stoking the fire. In your dark bedroom

you’d hear the scrape of the shovel and the thump

when cinders were dropped in metal washtubs.

Now the trains are all diesel and in Livingston at night

I hear them pass, Burlington & Northern, the horn

an immense bassoon warning the drunks at crossings.

Some complain but I love this night music,

imagining that some of the railroad cars are from

my youth when I stood in a pasture and thrilled

to my favorite, "Route of the Phoebe Snow."

To be excited by a cinder is to be excited about life.

"Kooser called from Nebraska to say he'd found..." by Jim Harrison from Livingston Suite. © Limberlost Press, 2005.