—Dedicated to a narrow gauge train that has headed off to a faraway place
It was a train that merited the description 憀ittle?
As it pulled up to a stop
The engineer would lean out the window
His joy lit up the day
Of anyone who saw him
That narrow gauge train stopped
At countless named and unnamed stations
People going to market
Could ride from a little hill stockade
To a market town they had never seen
The train was crowded, not just with people
But also with suckling pigs
That grunted in burlap bags
And roosters in bamboo cages
Crowing stridently here and there
Thinking they had escaped dark night
To enter a daylight of hope
Matrons in clothes adorned with needlework
Were grouped together in threes and fives
Murmuring and covering their smiles
Old men smoking water pipes
Always seemed to hunker in dark corners
A smell of plug tobacco filled the air
I have been told it was a train
That merited the description 憀ittle?
Yet, even so, in truth
There was something else about it
Something that grows distant in memory
I have been told it was a train
That could only be described as 憀ittle?
It was like a handed-down story
It was like a river in a dream
Yet all of this in our recollection
Even now remains so warm
It sometimes fills our eyes with tears