there's a contemplation to the way
a train spins a hill, makes a temple
with it, centering it off-center
as its own perspective, also with
tents and towns it is easier
to imagine being there, of there,
from rails than from a highway:
maybe a bit of that public sublime
of knowing the world is yours
as much as its own and others',
yours as the past is its own, gone
as hills dimpled goosefleshed with grass
and moles of live oak are their own,
as the flowers of an onramp breathe
and grow blue as the absent sky.