The Machinery of Silence

I was caught today at the train crossing on my way to pick up the kids. Me and everyone else: Engines idling, thunderclaps spitting the leftover dribble from yesterday's storm, the gentle rocking lull of engine rumble. All of us on our way someplace else. All of us stuck in-between "there" and "here" together, waiting. Despite the roar and clang of boxcars brimming with granite pounding along over steel rails, my anticipation of the youthful squeal and complaint of tired and possibly ornery children that was soon to fill the car left me marveling and soothed by my current circumstance -- awash in the machinery of silence and quelled by the symphony of machines silencing the moment ...