Montauk Train # 25

Montauk Train # 24

Yesterday afternoon
I returned to New York from Montauk
The 2:45pm train to Atlantic Avenue
On time departure
Picking up speed along Navy Beach
60
Crossing Hither Hills
New York City bound
For Christmas Eve___
The only passenger on the head car
Sitting on the right side
Out the window
Nepeague Bay
Farther North
Barely in sight
IN the afternoon light
The Connecticut shore
On the distant horizon
Train moving 65
Ever to the West___
No one gets on
At Amagansett
People are where they are
There's another hour of sunlight left
On Christmas Eve 2024___
Calls to family and friends
Around the world
No answers
No texts
Nothing
Me alone on the train
Past Southampton
I fall asleep
Maybe dream
Wake to a fuzzy recollection of eternity
To night
As the train enters Jamaica
Making good time
Transfer to a waiting train to Brooklyn__
First stop
East New York
Nothing says Christmas Eve
Better
Than an empty LIRR platform in East New York
Minutes later
Arrive on time to Atlantic Terminal
Fifteen passengers
Disembark
Into Christmas Eve of Downtown Brooklyn
No one waiting for me___
Outside
Night
Cold
Quiet
Not as quiet as Montauk
Not as cold as yesterday
Back in the city
The whir of car wheels
In my ears
Buildings everywhere
Empty streets
Christmas lights decorate Fort Greene
Walk carefully
On
Slippery day-old cold snow
Crushed flat
By thousands of feet___
Fort Greene
Unpopulated
Condo towers unlit
Undecorated
Almost alone as me
But I'm not lonely
Just alone
I have families to the north
In New England
Across the world
In Thailand
Wives, children, grandchildren
More apart by miles
Than by heart
Raise my eyes
No moon
Not a single star in the sky
To guide me to Bethlehem
Under the cruel rule of the IDF___
Only clouds
And I've seen both sides now___
Breathe easy
Coming down Clinton Hill
Past the gauntlet of light
Red, Green, yellow, blue and white
The houses filled with people
Not my people ___
Then I see the tree elves
Breaking down the shack
Sheltering them
Throughout the tree-selling season
They turn to see me
Call my name
Smile
I smile
I am not alone
I am with them
As I am with everyone
Here
and around the world
Apart
Alone
And
Together
In this life
Merry Christmas
And Peace of Earth
Pais, Shalom, Salaam, Khwan Sanuk
It all means the same
Peace
Now____
End all wars
Please give peace a change
It is all up to us
Because we are us__

Montauk Train # 20

Montauk Train # 10
8:18 out of Jamaica EMD diesel hauling passengers East All the way east To the last stop Montauk___ Last day of autumn December 20 Gray morning Almost winter 34 degrees outside Comfortable on the train Another two hours to Montauk Passing through the Long Island suburbs Small houses From the 50s and 60s For the parents of baby boomers Fleeing the city The small apartments The dirty streets The others___ Safe clean and space to breathe Beaches only minutes away Living the American dream__ Still looks that way From the 8:18 to Montauk No one on the streets Only cars One deer by a pond No other sign of life___ I know this life Suburbs of the South Shore In the Blue Hills South of Boston These houses So familiar Even after leaving the suburbs in 1976__ The East Village, London, Paris, Hamburg, Yucatan, LA, Bali, Thailand so many remote places Far from the suburbs But not today Just outside the window Family house, Christmas decorations, empty Street, bare trees, more marshes now Soon out of the suburbs On the 8:18 to Montauk Eastward bound__