Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2012SYR02
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Gleaming ghosts still wait
poster information
Description
Gleaming ghosts still wait
At a vacant train station
This is their last stop
The “Waiting for the Night Train” statues are a piece of history, a work of creativity, and a part of our community's culture. My parents would point them out, I read about them, and driving along I-690 I was always fascinated by them. I would be disappointed if I missed them! I was also interested in the red scarves that are put on them in the winter. Since there is no public access to them, I would think about the effort that must take.
Most people are driving so fast and pass by them so quickly that they almost feel like an apparition. The very idea of travel has to do with getting places and not seeing where you are. They are also ghosts because they are from the past. There had to be a last train ride out of that station, and I was thinking of what it would have been like to be on that last train.
I don't know Syracuse that well, even though I'm studying here. So this haiku gave me a chance to go exploring a bit. Because I never knew the statues were there, when I went to see them I thought they were strange. Why would these statues be situated on this abandoned train stop, with cars rushing by?
Yet when I looked up articles on the statues, there are people who seem to really care about them. They give them scarves and they repaint them. I thought it was sweet. The haiku says, “This is their last stop,” but I figured maybe it's not such a fatal ending. Maybe this is a beginning, or a midpoint, and these statues are traveling, and not so alone.