I am the only one alone on this train,
watching families cluster, friends laugh.
Mile Post Seventy-Two slides past the window,
avalanche protection standing guard.
Morning haze from last night’s forest fire
scents the air like distant campfires.
I missed the bus downtown yesterday—
another small journey undertaken alone.
It seems like old times:
everyone else, and me.
Not lonely, not ecstatic, just present in the space between.
The inland arms of Alaska stretch
like reaching hands I cannot grasp.
Turnagain’s tides rise forty feet,
surfers in dry suits riding the tsunami.
Two thousand moose roam unseen,
inhabiting the vast wilderness.
Are they ever lonely, I wonder,
or simply content in solitude?
Those with family and friends seem happier—
or do they simply seem so from a distance?
Green and green and white
and grey and grey and brown.
The colors blur together
as the train moves forward,
carrying me alone.
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