Susan Donnelly: “Night Train with Thunder”

NIGHT TRAIN WITH THUNDER

How slow that long train trundles
northward toward Charlottesville
on the track beneath the hill
at four a.m., to the rumble
that follows the lightning flashes
revealing the gray-brown hills.

How slow the cold season passes,
despite the redbud sketches
here and there in the mulchy woods
full of ticks and rabbits, foxes,
blacksnakes and sleeping birds.
How slow the dawn train passes.

Susan Donnelly is the author of three poetry books and five chapbooks. Her latest publication is The Path of Thunder, a chapbook collection of her poems about race in America, from Cervena Barva Press.

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