From Anderson's Piano: Exodus Poem by Sally Evans

An hour to check them all off the train,
held by the hand, assisted
down steep ladders to the sleepers,
forest awake and dark around them,
sixty souls safe, and guided,
emergency exodus through rockscape,
cab lamps at front and rear.

By forest, moorland, over horizons
the linked ribbons of the road
deserted and owned by the deer,
hum with a whistle of fire engines,
police, precautionary ambulances,
engineers, a Loch Awe tealady.

The jumbo carriages wait,
stuck to the landscape, wheelless,
soothed by the spirits of trees
that stalk the extravagant light,
zephyrs encouraged by the downdraft
of the morrow's helicopters.

Gutter Magazine, from Anderson's Piano