By Train from Barmouth to Porthmadog

Joyce Reed, who contributed to, and curated this series of poems states

“Journeys and modes of transport have always been fertile source material for poets. Perhaps trains, with their regular rhythm of the track, lend themselves particularly well to the making of poetry.

The traveller becomes an observer, even on the shortest of journeys, as fellow travellers come and go and chatter to one another, and the scenery goes on changing beyond the window. In transit we are in a time capsule until we reach our journey’s end.”

Enjoy the varied reflections on train travel.

Our fifth poem is by Penny Sharman, a local Marple resident.

By train from Barmouth to Porthmadog

Paul and Gareth are the ticket as their machines click-click. Dry stone walls are jigsaws on hillsides and inside my brain. Bright yellow gorse is hiding thorns that prick the blood.

At Talybont a barking dog makes us jerk and I'm backwards in history with the three field strip system, enclosures, surfs, squires, the manor of all things unbalanced in the landscape.

Then it's a time warp as the tannoy resembles Hi di Hi, as Paul tells us we are at Stuffandwwye amongst the dead bracken and sand dunes.

At Llanaber we are wave after wave on the Cambrian line, where mountains meet the sea, where water channels and pussy willows stand still at Pensarn.

Sea is everywhere as mountains of the Lleyn are covered in mist and the rails touch the base of Harlech, as such men here at Harlech castle.

There's Borth y Guest and Black rock behind vast salt marshes, the estuary with a neck of quick sand. At Porthmadog it's all about Snowdonia, a harbour with little painted houses.

There's a bag left on the train by a man out of his mind, and here it is again Hi di Hi and evening campers. Now it's all green and hundreds of sheep in the flatlands.

Long stalactites drop under bridges before Harlech, still the giant above the sea line with a dragon flag and tiny tiny windows looking out to nowhere.