Tag: trains

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Three Mates and an Interloper, Mathura Junction in 1600th Time, Mathura Junction Railway Station, Uttar Pradesh, India

Three Mates and an Interloper

My train speeds through the station
Camera lens pressed to the window
Short staccato shutter bursts
Seeking moments and frames

In one second
Three frames
Find three mates
And an interloper

This image the best
From the middle frame
Captured in 1/16,000th of a second

Then… they’re gone forever

In that moment now the past
Scarce opportunity for impressions
Too little time, even
To register more than a glimpse
Of form and tone

Years later
I shape the RAW data into a photograph
Meanwhile my mind lingers
With a ridiculously brief moment
Captured by glass, sensor and silicon

Allow the words to come
That shape stories
From the raw material
Of images
Collected from
Stories I’ll never know

With my muse ephemera
I rewrite history
To serve the present
Then offer a gift
To eternity

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Waiting for the Train, From the New Delhi to Agra Express Train, Uttar Pradesh, India

Waiting

We wait
This cold wet morning
For a train that is never on time

Huddled and swaddled
Against the chill
The platform
Covered from the rainy mist
But the breeze bites
Even through the blankets

In a mood neither bleak nor hopeful
But resolute and assured
For while the train is late
It is all but inevitable
And will take us from here
To somewhere else

Where somewhere else
May be work
Or home
Or family or friends
Somewhere we’ll find
Something we need
Or let go of something we don’t

Perhaps the only value
Of waiting here
Is to be able to step off
Somewhere else
Somewhere that is not here

And
For the moment
That is enough

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Looking Back, Random Train Platform, Delhi to Agra Express, Uttar Pradesh, India copy

Peering Back

I observe the world
People, structures, nature
Though people most of all

I peer into their world
Try to understand what they see
How they see it

It helps me see
The nuance in my own world
In my own perception

Every now and again
I notice people
Peering back at me

A moment most illuminating
As it reminds me
Look at yourself, through their eyes

And so, I wonder
What do they see?
How do they see me?