NIGHT TRAIN

"NIGHT TRAIN"

About 32 years ago I took a trip on the Auto Train (a train that carries passengers and your automobiles) from Lorton, Virginia to Sanford, Florida. It was winter - very cold and ice and snow had been on the ground for weeks and weeks on end. I was on that train traveling ONE WAY. I was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and had been there about 30 years. (Please don't do the math here. -grin- ) I was moving with my first husband and our son to the sunny state of Florida.

The train left Virginia late one afternoon of a freezing winter day and arrived the next morning in the warmth of Florida. The poem I'm copying here I wrote that night as the train sped down the rails.

I had no idea what was coming in my life -not a single clue - another child, descent into alcoholism, the struggle to survive it, admission of complete defeat, the opportunity to carve out a new life in Alcoholics Anonymous, divorce, the growth of relationship with God, a new God-given marriage, Alanon, finding the blog world, etc.

Often through the years I have thought that God gave me these poems to serve as a life vest I could grab hold of whenever I was sinking - to keep me afloat. I still believe this.

NIGHT TRAIN TO A NEW LIFE
The rails are humming
With piston power
Speeding through the dark
Black sequined night
Towards a new dawn light

My life is racing
With an unleashed urging
Careening through an unknown,
Strange, new passage
Forward to a special message

Quick are the changes
Changing dark to light
Leaving cold for warmth
Casting off illusion to clearly see
Past a clouded veil to a new reality
Prayer Girl