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THE ORPHAN'S PRICE
D. Bruce Ayler
Concordia, Kansas USA
December 3, 2002
Why calls the train whistle to me?
Why yearn I for clacking rails?
Of what import can belching smoke be?
Why mixes sadness with whistle's wail?
Why dream I of a far-off land
Showing me a place I cannot go?
Why feel I touched by another's hand?
How can I know what I cannot know?
Whose hand do I hold
In that dream-like far off land?
Whose voice begins to scold
When I make my small demands?
Why dream I of constant sway
And of the loud clacking sound?
Why ride we onward day after day?
Why are people gathered round?
Why has the hand left the train?
My friend no longer comforts me.
I ride onward through the rain,
Onward towards my unknown destiny.
Does my mind from reality flee?
Can there be such a far off place?
Why do distant sights upon TV
Make long buried emotions race?
As I awake, illusive threads of dream
Disappear like shifting slipping sands.
Were these memories as they seemed?
Came I from that far-off land?
The dream haunts me through-out my life.
Just where is this far-off place?
Will going there end my uncertain strife?
And far away my ghosts chase?
If I ever find my friend's hand,
Just whose hand will it be?
Will I recognize that far-off land
When it at last becomes reality?
Note: This poem is not meant to describe the feelings of any
particular Orphan Train rider but is made up of the composite feelings
of Orphan Train riders I have met over the years.
D. Bruce Ayler is the son of an Orphan Train Rider and webmaster
for the Orphan Train Heritage society of America, Inc. (OTHSA)
P.O. Box 322, Concordia, Kansas 66901 Tel./Fax: (785) 243-4471
[TALES]
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