It is a gathering of rust upon steel that has long been stilled---
Of paint that ages and fades by shades with each passing season---
Of hood doors cast open for the chill winds of winter to moan and whisper a somber epitaph through---
A eulogy of poling pockets long unused, of oxidized journals and congealed greases, and Type Es that beg to clasp with another---
A solemn reminder that Schenectady was a very long time ago, and a very long way from Texas.
As the low sun dodges clouds on its journey towards a meeting with the horizon at day’s end, the wicked west winds blow incessant, and in them is not enough inertia to move this body at rest.
Not even the hinges squeak.
The good earth sends up its tendrils to soothe the sorrowful, to caress a carcass left to the elements.
She’s done her job.
Without pomp.
Without circumstance.
Only toil.
To be, without ceremony or appeal of sentencing, shoved to track’s end, and silenced.
The iron has been unmercifully severed, imprisoning her to the wide-open, to the world that she has been condemned to watch pass by, and to the trains that rumble within sight.
There is perhaps no greater wounding.
---RAM
Rick Malo©2025
As an eastbound BNSF intermodal train speeds down the Transcon, an old Whitcomb 80-ton center-cab switcher endures a fetid retirement behind the Cattle Town Feedlot in Summerfield, Texas.