Grandpa's Run

The world at war, my Dad on some foreign shore,  

my young Mom with newborn me perch 

with his parents near railyard splendor.  

A broad plateau in blue ridge grandeur, 

Roanoke, in Virginia, inhales the local coal; 

steam trains then hump the lumps over  

the last of the foothills and ease 

into coastline shipyards, where the cargo they hold  

is sent all over, to be burned for power.  

Grandpa drove one of those long coal trains; 

before he retired, he sat on his front porch 

in a green wooden rocker, urging it to gather  

enough steam to make just one more run, 

to deliver the goods the world still needs, 

to provide the fuel that burns at the core.