Rails

These vacated, rusting railroad tracks, once the lifeline of the coal
 mines, now gone, or the clothing factories, unions broke,
 lie now like ley lines across this forgotten countryside.
 All the children have fled West,
 to find that elusive dream of a better way to live.
 You, are there too, please help them through!
 A graveyard along these abandoned tracks, holds pocked, old stones that tells their simple stories;
 Baby Lee, Mother, Loving Husband, Mollie with no last name to fame,
 lived and passed in these old school towns.
 All those who never imagined death to be in
 the cards, now strewn across this grassy hill of plaques of fallen stars.
 All these people,
 their headstones,
 tell us who they loved, who died,  comforted in a mother's arms; those who were swallowed 
 by barren farms,
 those who had an early fall,
 1931-1932, angel wings, say it all.
 Tattered, American flags, flutter in this haunted land.  
 The air feels so much thicker, You are here
 with all of them down under.
 Only an eagle swoops above upheaved stones, and on its wing, souls slowly soar,
 to be closer to You.
 Down the abandoned back roads that can no longer take heavy loads, dying towns, quickly come and go;
 a few stores, a place of worship, 
 the last vestiges of 
 communal life,
 a post office inside a quilt shop where
 God is in the stitches.
 Fading towns, with only bones of rusted tracks cast above the ground.
 This land, slowly, ever so slowly, divests itself of the chemicals spills,  
the leaded water is washed downhill, all the things that were meant to sustain life, but created death,
 were borne upon these rusted railroad tracks.  
 Slowly the earth heals itself, something new
 is in the air, 
 the trees are tinged with green buds awakening.
 A promise of a better life just around the corner, where the tracks have been paved over.
 Hear the rhythm of the cars, as they slightly ripple over the pavements' scars.
 A promise of a new path, which may be closer to Him,
 as the world begins again.