Train Passenger Poem by Roy Ballard

She did not see the endless stands of trees,
their hollow eyes in shadows by the tracks,
through once-enchanted regions where the bees
were sealing clover honey up in wax.
She did not see the murmuration write
its fleeting charcoal message on the sky;
girls diving like kingfishers in the bright,
reflective river as the train passed by.
The chapel, listing in eternal rest
to founder in the soft, decaying earth:
she did not see. Her thoughts were unexpressed.
Perhaps she wondered what the world was worth
while she sat there with neither smile nor frown
as if a final sun were going down.