The Up River Train, and: "A Rose for Emily"

We have stopped your snoring— odd roars over your dreams of wild honey in a mountain pasture. I fold the cover over your hills of bone and muscle. Row after row of neat black hair on your legs and chest wave like spring grass in the future dreams of my children. What I want is mine. I also know it is the dream that matters. TWO POEMS by Albert Stewart THE UP RIVER TRAIN At work we heard the whistle blowing Miles over crinkled hills, the sound Bird-clear and sweet with distance. My father looked up: Listen, he said, listen, The Up River Train above Chavies. Listen, he said, You can hear it shuffle-puff and pound on the rails. Listen, he said, holding his hand for attention, You can hear it enter the Walkertown tunnel. Listen. The shush of sound. Listen. The return of sound. Now she's blowing for Hazard, he said. He stood as if reflecting. Then: You'll not hear the likes of that often, Maybe once or twice in a lifetime if you're lucky. Wind and air have to be just right, he said, And, you have to be in the right place. Bending to work, Sign of falling weather, he said. My father knew about trains and weather. I listened as if the sound were calling To somewhere I might (sometime) be hopefully going 80 But that was years ago And many worlds and many deaths between. No trains run there anymore. And I have been out and beyond And learned somewhat of men and manners And returned alone to this raw field With the Up River whistle blowing, blowing And the weather falling. "A ROSE FOR EMILY" (a long-time neighbor of my upstairs house) When her father died, the clock ceased ticking. And momently the immediate dust swirled in idiocy And her mind soared in high and austere ritual Denying the possibility of event. As to visitors from another world Miss Emily spoke: "Gentlemen: you have made a mistake. My father is not dead." At her quaint upstairs window Miss Emily peered through opaque panes. Verdigris formed on the haughty pier glass in the hall While outside gas pumps multiplied, and paint peeled From decaying scroll work, and the passing dust Settled seedless on heavily-lightsome furniture. To the impertinence of new visitors Miss Emily replied: "I owe nothing to time and its promises of love." And, in effect, might as well have added: "For evidence, place a call through to Odysseus Or better still, Sir Launcelot." After her father died Miss Emily discovered arsenic as fixative Set the dead clock at 1:00 p.m. And knew death as lover. It was absolutely necessary To spear that slippery silvery fish To rock to stop the sliding world from sliding To hush those bells from singing . . . 81 ...