Small Boy

One thousand tons rolling forward without any means or intention of stopping

The machine churns forward with hard speed effortlessly skating on steel

confined to narrow space bypassing teeming communities that roil in pain and pleasure and prayer

A black bullet of clever confection and delicious power heedlessly lurches beyond the meadows and the bays

beyond the gardens and the cradles

beyond the temples and the hearths

Forward ever forward indifferent to both fairest weather and darkest caverns slippery with life

One thousand tons times twenty gliding dogmatically toward an unnamed destination intent merely on the exquisitely engineered efficiency of arrival

the journey remains lost in a blur of fallen trees

A small boy scuffles down the sandy embankment fascinated by the dead squirrel curious about an empty birds nest whittling at a dry piece of old wood worried about his neglected chores wondering about his father’s disposition eager to show his stuff in the game tomorrow afternoon

A thousand thousand tons of Time executes the curve in triumphant precision pressing carelessly onward

A small boy whistles on his way home