Hutt Valley Train

They sit like rows of green jade gods
Heads loose and nodding, expressions carved.
The apposite phrase is "gathering peascods"
(reason as well as rhyme here, however.)
If a giant hand could strip them of their lethargy,
And the head of this white innocuous man in front
Could be strung with other dry peas for all to see,
It would give me a certain, undefined pleasure.

These are brittle walls of shattering light
Hazed with unreal frost (it is summer),
When such speed as this divides the night,
(but the valley regardless, these people regardless)
And although homes and gardens and streets
Are less than an inch away through the window,
From a train they are as distant as if seen
In a picture-map of townlife, 1600.

Outside, in ruffs and cloaks, in any disguise,
They are hooded and meaningless externals,
Yet when the train stops, they are alive.
(In here, they do not know their captured heads
Are flying behind us now, linked like daisies).
But a 'plane overhead understands this perfectly
And with its winking eye pretends to be
A goldfish vomiting in the bowl of sky.

K. Northcote Bade