Stone Soup

Where young artists paint the world with words

The international magazine of stories, poems, and art by young writers and artists. Published continuously since 1973.

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Tracks

I go to the tracks to think,
The ties go on for miles.
They let me see the world,
They remind me how small I am.

The bushes creep into the dirt in the cracks,
Even in synthetic structures there is nature.
They have sat here long enough to be ruins,
And trellises for invasive vines.
But they were once signs of progress,
Human civilization creeping over unclaimed lands.

I go to the tracks to think,
There’s a rock a few yards off.
It’s big enough to sit on,
So I sit and watch.
Most remnants of the tracks’ glory days are gone,
But I can feel the rush of the wind as the trains hurtle past.

Tracks Ellanora Lerner
Ellanora Lerner, 13
New London, Connecticut