Dick Jones' Patteran Pages

Balezino Station is shared with The Mag.

BALEZINO STATION

At Balezino Station we disembark in silence
under the great arch of night. First whispers
leave breath hanging, shining like bright smoke.  
The old moon leans through cloud.  A silver wind
blows the stars about like spray. A tide of trees
floods the half-dark, sucks at the line’s edge.  

Motionless, we diminish, here at the junction
between two hemispheres.  Behind us bloodless
territories of turned soil and domestic waters
and beyond the taiga, the first forest to come
tumbling out of the young dreaming of the world.  

And now the thin edge of an eastern wind brings
tears of resin, a scent of green disorder, a cataract
of leaves and berries far ahead.  Darkness crowds us
back onto the train.  Rocked but sleepless, we sit
and stand by night-curtained windows, watching
dim images of ourselves watching the flying trees.
 
Balezino is situated roughly equidistant between Kirov and Perm on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

 

Shared with The Mag.

BRINGING IN THE FISH

A small island race raised
on this brief silver harvest:
fish slithering like coins
from treasure chests hefted
down from rusting boats
that seem too nutshell frail
to ride these stacked northern seas.
Cluttered quays slick with moss,
bleak streets and blunt-nosed cottages.

Nothing glitters or shines here
by design, nothing radiates. Rain
ties the clouds to the cobbles
all year round. But then the boats
come sidling out of mist and spill
their trove and a stolen richness
shimmers briefly in the dark.