I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass into ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he going and he answers: “Omaha.”
This poem needs little explanation, but I would add that in Arabic, one of the words for a fast train is ‘aajila, and ‘aajila is a word used classically to mean this life moving at a fast pace.
مَّن كَانَ يُرِيدُ الْعَاجِلَةَ عَجَّلْنَا لَهُ فِيهَا مَا نَشَاءُ لِمَن نُّرِيدُ
Who ever wanted the ‘aajila, we speed it up for him in it however we wish to whomsoever we wish, which always reminds me of how life seems to be moving at a faster and faster pace, along with the speed of our communications.
