“Nazim Hikmet begins a poem
With the phrase, ‘Another thing
I didn’t know I loved.'
He writes in a tone of amazement.

He’s a Turkish poet in exile.
He’s on a train in winter,
Leaving Prague and headed
Toward an uncertain future.
The poem he’s writing is a list
Of things he suddenly knows
Are precious.

He doesn’t know
Where he’s going – old man
At the start of a long, cold ride.
The list he recites is also long.

As long as he keeps making that list,
He’s traveling toward the beloved."

From How Beautiful the Beloved, by Gregory Orr

“I am seduced by trains. When one moans in the

night like some

dragon gone lame, I rise and put on my

grandfather's suit. I pack a

small bag, step out onto the porch, and wait in
the darkness. I rest

my broad-brimmed hat on my knee. To a
passerby I'm a curious 

sight—a solitary man sitting in the night.
There's something

unsettling about a traveler who doesn't know
where he's headed.

You can't predict his next move. In a week you
may receive a

postcard from Haiti. Madagascar. You might
turn on your

answering machine and hear his voice amid the
tumult of a 

Bangkok avenue. All afternoon you feel the
weight of the things

you've never done. Don't think about it too
much. Everything

starts to sound like a train."

David Shumate, “Trains"

“As firmly cemented clam-shells
Fall apart in autumn,
So I must take to the road again,
Farewell, my friends."

Basho, Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Down valley a smoke haze

Three days heat, after five days rain

Pitch glows on the fir-cones

Across rocks and meadows

Swarms of new flies.

I cannot remember things I once read

A few friends, but they are in cities.

Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup

Looking down for miles

Through high still air."

“Mid-August at Sourdough Lookout", Gary Snyder