An Unreserved Train Compartment

We met again, after so many years,
through the train’s window I see—
vast meadows, the fields of ripening green,
water-bodies glimmering with quiet breath,
all rushing backwards
while we keep moving
towards the future!
 
How strange—how are you now?
A sudden winter has fallen on the plains,
my age has grown heavy,
creepers and leaves too thick with weight.
And you—how do you fare?
The sky seems kind, at least.
 
Do you remember the winter lake,
the birds that used to come?
Benches littered with fallen leaves,
and our vow—to dream aloud
of days not yet born,
to listen to promises of the new.
 
But civilization has shifted,
my head aches with time’s burden.
Where have those hours gone?
Through the train window the earth itself
runs neatly backwards,
while I, finding a sky of my own,
search still for that old station
after so many roads of life,
an aged body carrying new words,
eyes fixed forward.
 
Ah, our days of youth—
our stories of desire and promise,
where we said we would disembark,
but never did.
That station passed long ago.
And now—again we meet
at some unfamiliar stop.
 
Where must we alight?
We never knew.
So we kept walking forward,
leaving the past behind.
Now, when I glance back through the glass,
the vision feels frail,
the pace of time almost unbearable.
 
And then—will you step down somewhere?
Your destination seems near.
I too am headed somewhere.
Before we vanish again into nowhere,
let us rest a while.
 
After so long, memory clings—
in the rhythm of time we might still board
some passing train,
an unreserved compartment
where the two of us
may hold, for once,
a little portion of time reserved.
 
Then, on some distant platform,
we shall sit again,
our eyes lifted
towards the sky.