Train Song

Christopher Dewdney
From:   Demon Pond. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994.

The engineers who sound the whistle are neither happy nor sad - though the voice of the train, softened by the interceding air, has a thin, lonely sound. Distance makes it plaintive.

The whistle interrogates the emptiness around it. Its constant signature during our lives lends it an aural nostalgia and its voice is a summons to the greater world. For those who hear the whistle and for those who pause, but once, to hear the whistle's music, it is the sound of a passage that passes by.

The train whistle speaks of solitary travel. A melancholy refrain, a chord at once arbitrary and distinct, it calls us back. The train is hope of return, of destinations still awaiting.

From Demon Pond by Christopher Dewdney, published by McClelland & Stewart, The Canadian Publishers. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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Christopher Dewdney's works copyright © to the author.