A single, brief whistle
from a train above the valley
bounced from blue air to me:
whether warning to kids too near,
greeting to a fellow engineer,
or formal code of railway protocol,
it spoke to me of one thing only—
how a boy of nine
in a prairie town of wheat and coal
can hear the long reach of something
travelling from sunrise to dead of night,
whether he look before him, or behind. | LISTEN to this poem:
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