The train of cars he pulled hugged the earth as he flew up and back down, then up again, as his master shovelled in fuel to keep him awake and give him the vital heat he needed.
The carriages on some stretches faintly rattled over the rails and emitted a spark or two, as if a blacksmith somewhere were hard at work. Vulcan, the god of fire, making for some warrior fine armour, as fine as that immortalised by some poet long ago.
Such men are sleeping now, in some murkier or meadowy place reliving their days of glory.
The Iron Horse knows them not, only those called 'the sleepers', upon whom he tramples. The men, his master says, who built the railroad and died doing so, worn out from their labours. Each sleeper a man, run over; kept down and level in his bed, so that other men may ride. Blood, sweat and tears. A new lot laid down and run over by the Iron Horse with his steam cloud. In deep snow too, in snow-shoes, as with giant plough he ploughs a furrow, and as he does so lets out a ear-rending neigh.
In his belly fire and in his cars sometimes goods, sometimes passengers, sometimes both. The goods loaded, the passengers ushered in, by men that work the line.
Here, the Iron Horse can stamp and defiantly snort, and show the devil in him; refuse to have more cars hitched to him, to accept yet more goods or passengers.
Here, at rest, he can catch his breath, before his master whips him onwards.
Onwards, onwards...his breath once again panting heavy. The smoke emanating from his nostrils a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths, illuminated by the heavens. He has won; he is winning...
His master, too, labours and pants, or occasionally coughs, from it. A harsh, dry sound. And every now and then wipes his brow, slick with perspiration. He was up early this morning to fodder and harness his steed, and the hours are beginning to tell.
Both, the Iron Horse and his master, anticipate, with keenness, a longer period of cooling off, some time of iron slumber.
Picture credit: Train in the Snow, or The Locomotive, 1875, Claude Monet (source: WikiArt).
A reworking of a passage from Waldron by Henry David Thoreau, written December 2020.
