January 13, 2010
This train don't stop there anymore
One of my favourite songs by Elton John is 'This train don't stop there anymore.'
Abandoned stations have always moved me; moss covered platforms; rusty platform signs; but no rails now, and no trains. The trains don't stop there anymore.
And I reflect on all the stations I've passed through, with a chug and a whistle; and never to return. I've pulled away from some without a thought. Others I've left with much looking back; jerky and uncontrollable sobbing.
But that's how it is, if you're a train. The train leaves stations behind.
Though now I sense the final leaving and the last station; my self. The leaving of my self; never the finest of stations, but familiar and always something going on! Oh, the stories I could tell...
Beyond the station, I see a vast and luminous space, a bright emptiness, where I am present, where I am oneness and transparent. Its good; its wonderful, but I have to leave to get there.
I cry at this leaving; for with it go my dreams, excitements and distress; things I hold dear. And with it go ways of being which are the only ways I've known.
I sense this. I sense all this, aware that this is not one more platform; but the final platform. And that this train - this crazy longing-for-life train - don't stop there anymore.
'The train leaving Platform Self'...so many goodbyes...trains shouldn't cry but they do...
Posted by Mr Bojangles at January 13, 2010 06:21 PM