RETURNING MEMORIES
Some sounds take me back to childhood days,
And the important part each memory plays,
The joys and sorrows and laughter and pain,
With a simple sound can return once again.
A sound of a train whistle and clattering wheels,
The upsurge of love and joy that it sweetly wields,
Memories back to childhood going for a holiday,
Or the comforting sound from bed, hearing far away.
It’s good when you hear it to go out and watch it pass,
Now close too just on the other side of a patch of grass,
Is it the passenger or a long freight we will wait and see
The clackery-clack will bring back many a good memory.
It passes by our window and often old memories awake,
And I close my eyes and remember the trips we used to take,
The going to the station to see the troops return safe home,
No longer to fight a war or in strange lands again to roam.
The mail train, the goods train that usually carried coal,
Maybe live cattle, a man sneaking a ride who’s on the dole,
But it was the passenger with an important number or name,
I must admit today’s engines so sterile are not quite the same.
(Millicent) Ann Margetson 21 April 2006