If I lived here, in the lonely old railroad yards, I'd plant lettuce between rail ties, tomatoes along the sidings, beans on the roofs of switch houses, eggplants in the rusted hulks of old cars, strawberries in the roundhouse.
If I lived here, in the stations long abandoned, I'd invite deer into freight warehouses, skunks into depots, snakes into mail-rooms, crows into signal towers.
If I lived here, on the railroads left for dead, the grades would turn to rushing streams in the spring, fish would gather in switchbacks and side spurs, and the railroads would live again.
[16 Sep 94, Amtrak, north of Philadelphia]