OSLO TO BERGEN EXPRESS

Torrents recede to a faint hiss,

clinging birches mutter crisply,

a trapped gnat whinges in my beard

as I scramble up splintered rock

to a ballasted shelf hung

between rough-hewn cavern mouths.

Strung pylons crouch like alert reptiles

over sleek uncoiling tracks. Steely silence

defies breathing, makes the ears sing.

A beam’s trace searches one tunnel wall,

bursts into a white eye blasting light

from aloof streamlined face that bears down,

screams by, antenna snapping blue flashes.

Skirl of steel biting steel curve, sucking draught

and sighing music of carriage after carriage,

rows of lights and heads, one surprised stare,

the last vehicle almost holding back before

the far portal swallows its red lamp.

Was this all I’d sweated here to see?

Or does watching an assured passage

that links lives with lives free me

from just letting another remote day

sink into dense tent-flapping night?