The train doesn’t ask your name— it only knows direction.

Steel pulled taut over promise, its breath a howl through the pines

of Truckee,

rising into the throat of the Sierras like a question: 

what now?

You sit beneath the rust-sung cover of the engine,

a job of twenty-two years folded behind you

like ticket stubs from stations passed—

not torn,

but kept.

The wheels speak in couplets:

Forward—anyway. Forward—anyway.

Even as your fingers brush the throttle,

the wind decides its own speed.

Even as you chart the grade,

gravity wants its say.

Below, the bones of Chinese laborers

and Mormon sweat glint between rails—

men who gave their names to the dirt

and still the spike was golden,

still the hammer fell,

still the lines were married

where Utah holds its breath.

And you?

You are that hinge now,

the seam between “was” and “what if.”

The fire of your long devotion flickers,

then leaps again—

not into yesterday,

but into next.

Through Donner Pass,

the snow sheds whisper warnings,

but you ride with fate beside you

like an old friend not quite trusted.

The past calls from each switchback,

but the present burns in the boiler.

And the descent into Sacramento is not surrender—

it’s arrival.

It’s the earth softening beneath oak and orchard.

It’s the tracks smoothing like song

after storm.

You stand now,

not because the train stops,

but because you’ve learned

how to ride it,

how to jump,

how to land

without breaking the silence

of what still waits

beyond the curve.