Walking Shoes of Spanish Leather

I put one ear down to the tracks and one up to the sky of faint silver clouds rolling across the powder blue twilight. I can hear it stretching away from me in both directions forever, the slightly rounded I-beam that carries oranges, timber, and eager lovers with a gentle sway across the countryside. I hear the thunderous logs coming east from clear-cuts on the west coast, sometimes so big you could see them from the space shuttle in orbit. I can hear hopeful fishermen turned migrants headed back west, exchanging empty seas for full tar sands in a surreal swap meet. It's all too much, so I crunch back a few steps on the gravel path and lean against the sturdy, taken for granted brick wall in the moist summer evening. It's cool and earthen and red, I can feel all that through my imported disposable t-shirt. I close my eyes and smile from my pre-frontal cortex on down, thinking of the sweet apples I carry home from market on this very path on Saturday mornings. The moonlight gently washes the outside of my eyelids and the inside of my neural pathways, and I slide into some peace under this night sky that I shared with you wherever you were. For just a moment, it's all too perfect - the tender balance of joy, creation, entropy, and absence of meaning in the ebb and flow of this big bang that we find ourselves in the middle of. It's so sweet I'm afraid to upset it, breathing gently in and out of my nose and cradling this balance where I've come to rest, both sides of the scale filled with equal gold and tears.
Questions alight and dance gently on the great grey angst machine inside my skull, but flit on into the open arms of a broad purple sky robust with twinkling yellow stars that gave it all to reach us with their message of beautiful silence. Touched by their persistent footsteps, I cannot hold my ground but only place my palms gently down on the pavement beyond my knees. I slip out of the moment slowly, with a little regret and a tiny smile, thinking of warm fresh bread, kissing and being kissed, bicylce repairs, sailing winches, and how great it is to have local sweet potatoes even up here. I can feel the cosmic non-coincidence of faint vibrations, and hear the horn of the train. A warm breeze blows down the rail corridor, just ahead of the iron horse, and I see the sweet yellow lights of people who can't see me in the darkness. The bright fluorescent lights show me infitesimally small slices of life - a young, wild haired couple leans toward each other, a conductor leans idle in the alcove at the end of the car, a newspaper page is being turned, and the wake of the train is only the futile attempt of noise to leave its mark on the pressing, animated silence.
If only I could remember this passing of time, the universe providing a quiet mirror with no frame, then I could pocket my zen and stroll under the maples, oaks, and ash trees, holding your hand and admiring the brownstones and gently rubbing the brief bit of enlightenment in my pocket between thumb and forefinger. Instead, the search begins again and again, and perhaps we can lose ourselves in that together...