There are moments when I'm on a freight train, smelling the exhaust of the engine as it pulls with inconceivable steel force across a western landscape, staring out across the endlessnothing until it breaks into a great dome of blue sky, that I am gaining understanding. When I'm somewhere in America and am catching the anonymous eyes of late-night travelers in truck stop lobbies that I'm learning about humanity. When I'm remembering the many remarkable people I've met that have irrevocably changed my life, and daydreaming about future moments when we'll be together in freedom in lands yet unknown to me. As I make grand plans I'm certain I'll realize. As I melt soundlessly into the dying light of a sunset, alone and far from any chains that may bind me, and I release a long breath of relief and appreciation for the freedom I have in nature.
Truly, I have fallen in love with the foul smells of industry, the loud hard heartless cold of steel on steel, trains, trucks, factories. It is the ugly soul of human society, and yet it is there to be seen, not ignored. It is through ignorance that we let it become our world. It is one of many evils we pretend does not exist by simply looking away. In America, there are millions of dying souls, lonely and lost in timeless oblivion and it's hard to say if there was a beginning or will be an end. I know this, I know them. They have told me their pitiful stories. They are the workers and taxpayers, and yet they are invisible. Unless you are one of them, you don't even know they're there. Until you have invited their stories into your life, their horrible miserable histories, they remain phantoms in a society that prefers they remain unseen.
No comments:
Post a Comment