Time Tunnel

The granite cliffs above the far bank loom in and out of blizzard
I glimpse a railroad tunnel up in their snow-blasted face
The wind lashes the snow into a frozen dust
Passengers squash their fur hats lower and muscle into the shot snow
The skin shines raw and their eyes narrow
Visibility drops and the snow thickens
A dog appears and bounds alongside
Its snout and whiskers pickled in snow
The tunnel started over a giant bridge to link to the Pacific
Convicts died dynamiting it through the rock
The gapping concrete ceiling runs through the mountainside
Segmented intestines of a worm
The only rails inside it belong to excavator's vanished tracks
The drip of water overpowers the silence
A barricade of rocks rises to bar the way
I crawl over the boulders and drop into blackness
A jagged road pushes through the crystalline earth
Non-existent trains come whistling and thundering through
Razor-edge rock glints close above
Charred beams lie crashed across the way
or sunk in iron-stained puddles
I clutch the walls in vertigo
A hundred feet up a hillside
The blizzard rages '
A flock of startled redwings
Whirrs up from the shrubs
Water lisps on powdered black rock
The un-built bridge cross over the grey sea
Carrying trains for over half a mile
from the tunnel of wasted dead
into a lost blizzardy whiteness
© @ Z Guadamour, 2011