I stand on the
overpass above
Delawanna Ave. This is the
NJ Transit Delawanna Station. You won't find Delawanna on a map, it's an
anonymous suburban neighborhood of a
middle-class suburban
municipality, the southernmost tip of an anonymous suburban
county, basking in the shadowy
aura of the
Emerald City of
Manhattan, and this
line is a forgotten
spur of the
Yellow Brick Road. I squeeze off two
snapshots of the signs: to the
left, "
Port Jervis", and I don't know where that is; to the right, "
Hoboken". That's
Manhattan-ward, direction enough for me. When I was 7, I lived in the
corner house two
blocks away by
taxicab geometry, but since the tracks were
verboten, and we never had cause to take a train, this spot is new to me today. Clear golden afternoon sun bathes rusty rouge-y
cinder, rotting
ties,
trash that will
blow away before anyone picks it up. This
guy with
one eye stands by the
plexiglass shelter - it's a stop, not what I would consider a "real" station. He says he comes here for the
quiet. What
line runs through here? Oh, there won't be a train through here today, not on a
Sunday. He's drinking a can of
beer, the
skin of his
thirtysomething face tells a
murky and verbose tale of
alcohol, but for this moment he is
lucid enough to say a little about
trains and
quiet and
Petey's Woods that were
half a mile down the tracks (in the Port Jervis direction) before they built the
condos there...
There, but for the grace of God, go I. I'm not sure which eye to look at - the open one, blue-gray and lively, or the one he keeps closed, like a
Moorcock hero between
doom-laden adventures. I
compromise and address the
bridge of his nose. That welcome early spring sunshine casts interesting shadows from fences and stone stairs and railings. This is what I am here for, I bid my friend a good day and stride two ties at a time, on
down the line,
taking pictures as I go.
Click. Rotted
ties fade into dirt and cinder on an abandoned
spur.
Click.
Givaudan-Roure office building presides over the
toxic waste site.
Click. A row of
forsythia blooms like
fountains of
sparks.
Click.
Steel rails disappear into the distance, leaving
a study in perspective in their passing.
Click. One
crazy old
telephone pole leans out of line in its eternal
march beside the tracks.
Click. Click. Click.
I offer a
silent prayer of
thanksgiving for new eyes today, for a
vision un
corrupted by the dull
contempt of
familiarity.