Day the Third

So, this is how today's prompt started:

"I always think of Day 3 as the day that the challenge gets real. Make it through today, and you can make it through this whole challenge."

Which I found ominous. I scrolled through the rest of the encouraging, ra-ra post and discovered that my prompt was: machine.

I always expected that there was going to be an uninspiring prompt, and counted myself lucky that the first two were easy. It took me quite a while to come up with anything that could be considered a machine poem... and it really isn't:

The Train South
 
An eager chuff.
A pull. A surge.
Wheels turning
On the track.

I perch and watch
The platform go
Find I'm sitting
Front to back.

Fast. And Faster.
City blurs.
Skyscrapers
and chimney stacks.

Spire and seagulls
Seen. Then gone.
Sacramento
Falling back.

Sudden farmland,
Cathedral sky
Train is singing
Wheels clack.

My heart sings too

Beats wheel-time.

Earth slips by me,

Front to back. 
 
To be honest, I am not entirely sure how I feel about this one. There are parts I like very well, and when I was writing it, thought them good. The whole thing is from the feeling I remember from my first train ride. I was ridiculously excited by trains - still am, as a matter of fact. The Sacramento train station is in the middle of a decrepit and derelict section of downtown, and you pass abandoned lots and graffitied walls as you pull out. Then, before you know it, you are gathering speed amid a tangle of off-ramps and over-passes... and suddenly for just one moment, everything clears away, and you get fleeting, postcard picture of a white church steeple, which is frequently attended by flocks of wheeling gulls, crying wildly for the river. Then the city is flicking by again, but that instant - if you catch it - is beautiful. So of course, that showed up in the poem. 

And now, though it is not all that late, I shall go toddling off. My sisters and I spent the evening making ravioli for Easter dinner - completely by hand, as we have no pasta machine.... sadly. How great would it have been to write a poem about the efficiency of a pasta machine?!? So we rolled and rolled, till it was as thin as we could make the dough, and cut circle after circle, which we filled with great mounds of pureed meat, crimping the edges down with forks. It took hours (there will be 15 people partaking of our ravioli, so we made lots) and it was fun, but it was hard work, and I am tired now.

But I finished the poem, so if that daily encouragement is true, I will be able to make it through the whole challenge. 

Wish me luck!