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"Rail Riders, a Memory"
by Jill Raydean Egesdal

Across the fields and down past the warehouses filled with brown boxes,
I hear the crash and metal scrape as coal cars mate with cargo carriers
coupled in arranged marriage,
consummated in the whistling wail of the diesel engine,
and I am reminded of summer Sundays at my grandmother's house
when the rail riders would see her garden
with pole beans towering over lush red tomatoes
and the smell of her soda biscuits baking
next to a fat roast whose wafting fingers beckoned in meaty invitation.
They would jump wide of their boxy beds into the tall weeds,
land in a cloud of pollen and fluffy headed seeds, and
amble up the sloping half acre from the tracks that ran through the backyard,
knocking meekly upon the door, hollow eyes hopeful through the screen
clutching cap in hand and gazing downcast
to the holes in their dusty shoes and patched dungarees,
asking if ma'am had any work to do
that might earn them a plate of those fresh beans.
And I, in pigtails that hung the length of my back,
would sit on the back porch with them, my chin cupped in my hands
listening with rapt attention to the stories as long as the rails themselves.
And harmonica songs always followed,
accompanied in perfect tempo
by the sound of their forks scraping their plates.

Jill Raydean Egesdal is a lifelong poet and writer of short stories who escaped the treadmill of the rat race and for the past 10 years has spent her life working for the greater good of humanity, primarily for non-profits, schools and churches. Her poetry can be seen at www.myspace.com/my1gracespace. (This is Jill's first published poem.)