Amtrak Romance

I am in need of a good romance, and here is the best one I wrote. I am hungry for travel, can you tell?


Finally, you have shown your majesty! I have been waiting for you since last night, as I tried to appease my longing by playing childish games with the Prairies. My only solace was knowing that you had no choice but to come; it was only a question of daylight, as I prayed you would not be shrouded by the darkness that can be so cruel and unforgiving to your countenance.
I am shocked by the smoothness of your face up-close. Ha! And you have fooled us all! Hardly a blemish, though you must be guarding your past within the lines that run deep within your surface.
The snow is trying, desperately at times, to cover your amber rocks and prickly vegetation. But you know, it is too early just yet to allow these to slumber.
There’s a tiny, frozen pond, guarded by Spruce, that has sealed its surface with ice from the migrating birds for the season. Unlike the soil, it cannot wait any longer to sleep.

Your city is below us, so far that the skyscrapers look like toothpicks rising out of your base. The sky is clear, but it only gets bluer as we ascend.


A barbed wire fence warns of a ranch, but the only signs of life are the grey, bristly plants that have no interest in admiration.

Every so often we glide through a tunnel and your jagged, blasted walls make me thankful for your graciousness. You may threaten a collapse, but maybe only to those who are unworthy. The locomotive cracks and creaks around your curves, careful to respect your temperamental invitation. As I peer over your side I wonder how many you have thrown off before us in their vain attempts to speed. In all of our greed you have allowed us passage for a price that some think is too steep. You have forbidden us to travel through you, unnoticed. After all these years it is finally clear to me who is the Jester and who is the Queen.

As we bend through a tunnel my head begins to feel your massive height. Maybe my brain is going to explode out of my ears, or maybe that’s just how it feels. When we leave the darkness of this manmade womb, I am greeted by your pines and snow that have conquered the beautiful shades of orange and your scraggly shrubs. It is the only life form fit enough for your summit.
But wait!
Footprints in the snow uncover the sacred hiding place of the elusive cat!
What are you hiding up here?
A creature so misunderstood within our civilization that it can only find sanctuary on your highest peak. You are what myths are made of!
Where lines and cracks once were, the pines have revealed their unsurpassed omnipotence. They thrive on the absence of oxygen, their height towering above their cousins down below. They taunt the greedy consumer, though you have protected them with your impassible terrain.

Far ahead of us looms the snowy peaks of your siblings. They soar so far into the blue that I mistook them for clouds! What a fool I am to think a cloud would dare blemish this scene!
There is a foreign rumbling coming from the earth, and at first I mistake it as a grumbling coming from you.
Then it’s source sheepishly reveals itself; a freight muscles past us and for a moment I am shaken from this romance. But it doesn’t take me long to realize that the slow, lumbering cars filled with coal have a way with seduction, and the passion continues.
They told me of the Bald Eagles and coyotes. They said you hid them well but often exposed them as a reminder of your glory. You must have outsmarted me this time, as I press my head against the glass, eager to see my kindred spirit, but your trees are guarding them well. You have this way of taunting me, but I will be back.
I see you have finally allowed the water to flow from your peak! After years of turmoil between you and the river, it looks like you have given into your ego and allowed her to cleave smoothness into your roughness. She allows you to have life and as she carves her way deeper into your core she exposes more and more of your guarded wisdom. I can see that it has taken you years to cooperate, and with all due respect, I think she is more powerful than you.

Sadly, I see our affair is coming to an amicable end. Pavement is visible and residents are threatening our privacy. Power lines are beginning to bully their way into our secret and I think some are becoming suspicious of us. As the pines start welcoming the leafless tress back to their neighborhood, and the rocks become slippery with moss, our time is quickly running out. So I bid you farewell, but find comfort in the fact that we will meet again. Not to worry, your beauty will not be marred by disrespect or greed; you have proven yourself stronger than that. As the light creeps further west, your face resigns itself to youth and I will bow out gracefully, thankful that the desert is on its way.