the signal box

 the signal box

the signal box

it is in the 1960s mind you

see the shiny levers with their release handles

the mutton cloth handed caress

the colours denoting things

a child could only imagine

the hard black and white levers that pulled the points

too hard for a child’s wince even with the counterweights

in the basement of the box where the battery jars fizzed

look 

a phone straight out of a Wells Fargo western

spin the handle and talk into the spout

earpiece at the end of a platted wire 

jing jing jing 

the coded call to another box on another line

the wood there also shining to the hands of time

jing jing jing 

the tombola box of winking eyes

some white some red

again reminded a boy of what was still unknown

as important a signal as was ever pulled in this box

where the signal man is sitting to a cuppa chair 

everything shining of time 

looking back now it is shrouded in the mist of a winsome cello

straddled by an old man’s knees 

he sees the young boy’s knees

that ran the stairs and walked the railing where

the key to the single line was handed to the train driver

and the thought handed to the boy to keep in the leather purse 

deep in the recesses of a mind closing around that time

and of course the map that ran the length of the signal box wall

the signal lights flickering all the way from here to Timbuktu 

a real time machine to a local boy at the edge of his territory 

and daring do

oh yes he had climbed the signal posts

looked at the wick flickering red

watched the signal drop to green the points slide irretrievably clang

jumpin to the conclusions from many days chatting

to the signal box man

in his signal box

by his coal fire

with his cup of tea

and me

the levers shinning in my mind pulling this day 

the mutton cloth of many colours strung loose

over the oiling of memories until

the red signal falls