Night train noises, muffled and low,
nights when the Northern Limited left.
Midnights, we'd hear its strange chord blow, a distant dissonance, treble-cleft.
Languid in summer, dulled in snow,
it spoke to me calmly: Trust and rest.
The night world works on a steady clock.
The barges ride on the river's crest;
at port in Duluth, the grain ships dock, and a streetlamp lit at the end of the block looks in at the window's blind from the west—

I never learned: Did the schedule skew
departure times into daylight hours,
or did neighbors grouse, as neighbors do, that living close to a loud sound sours tempers and lives? I never knew, but it's not there now, though we still see track.
The freeway sound and the freeway grime
color the nights. The snow turns black,
and the block club frets over rising crime, and a time I thought was a peaceful time, though I wish for it fiercely, will not come back.

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