Drawn owlish train whistles
in plaintive shrillness
each piercingly chisels
through nightly stillness
Through windows in blurry caprice
darkly flash by power poles
Swaying coach cradling us in peace
lounging bodies, stirred up souls
Thunders through crossings’ clangs
of collapsing crescendo
fading as also-rangs
until mere innuendo
Through mountains, along banks
rolls the Coast Starlight
Each wheel set timely clanks
in silent moonlight
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-also-rang = rang: past tense of ring; from ‘also-ran’
-Coast Starlight = the Amtrak train between Seattle and Los Angeles