YWP: ‘Train Songs I and II’

[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.

YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Anna Forsythe at anna@youngwritersproject.org.

“Sometimes the difference between ‘think’ and ‘feel’ is critical,” writes St. Albans student Julia Scott. This phrase is the lead-in to the first of this week’s two complementary poems, both with the unlikeliest of inspirations: trains. But these words also describe Scott’s particular creative style, too. Her works are simplistic and unfussy, requiring little detangling to absorb the emotion behind the observations made. Side by side, they highlight her ability to play around with two different methods of structure and voice in the exploration of a single subject.

Train Songs I and II

By Julia Scott

Train Song I

[S]ometimes
the difference
between
“think”
and “feel”
is critical.

For instance,
if I were to say,
“I think the trains
are speaking
to me,”
you might find me
mad
or self-absorbed,
asserting that
the trains
have me in mind.

But were I to say,
“I feel the trains
are speaking
to me,”
you would likely
understand
that I do not
believe the trains
are truly, literally
speaking to me.

You would see
I mean
that the trains
call out
to my soul.

Train Song II

The trains linger over my shoulder at night,
their calls ringing out in the dark.
The trains have been there for me.

I listen for the trains,
at night when they are awake
in the shadows and the cold.
They sing to pass the time
from one town to the next.
I like to think the trains
sing old bluegrass ballads.

I have heard the trains cry.
It was a loud and mournful sound,
a passionate lament.
And I wondered, half awake,
what they were saying,
and what weighed on their souls.
What does it mean
that I live in a world
where trains can cry?