The End of the Line

The dead march of time

Brings hardest working engines

Grinding to a halt

Descending slowly,

With a rusty clatter and

Declining body

Sun burns flaking paint

With the fierce long fingers of

Bloody setting sun

Striving to reach sheds

Before last day is ended,

Struggling, slowing steam

Moving from freedom

Of the rails, backbone of life,

To the obscure shed

The snow is no friend

To the ageing charcoal lines

Aching down the track

The story ending,

Locomotive paragraph

History’s footnote

Steam gushes around

Old wheels, clanking in protest

Put out to pasture

Descant of decay,

Dirt, dust, death now performing

Three-part harmonies

Fading and crawling,

Red livery overcast

With soot this last day