Trains, clocks, and anxious beauty

[Photo by Big Frank Dickinson taken in the train station at Bayreuth, Germany]

This next photo is a wonderful mixture of trains, clocks, and the anxious look of a beautiful traveler (Big Frank's good friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Mandy). Stafford's poem goes very well with this photo.

Romance
by William Stafford

A woman down our street went away and became
the sound of a train on a rainy night,
lingering like a scarf in the trees.

To Chicago, some said, but all traces
vanished. Years later a card came—
Valparaiso, but faint, and maybe not her.

Now, whenever it rains, like children
we listen at the window. We know some friends
won’t ever come back, really.

But the sound of a train is ours, and Valparaiso.

-- William Stafford