News:

A long trip gives us reason to complain.
If only it—no. Set aside impatience.
Resign yourself to writing on the train.

Pleasure-stippled memories do remain,
and somber stretches criss-crossed with elations.
Traveling provides reasons to complain,

yet looking backward, scanning the terrain
you have traversed can furnish consolation.
Take some notes before you leave the train.

Nostalgia blots the present with its stain.
Interruptions shatter fresh occasions.
There's no lack of reasons to complain.

Bask in sunlight but remember rain.
Concentrate despite the aberrations
on either side. Keep writing on the train.

We aren't well constructed to retain
happiness, but we stop at many stations,
and not all furnish reasons to complain.
Find a way of writing on the train.

Rachel Hadas teaches English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University. She is coeditor of The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (2009) and her most recent collection of poems is The Ache of Appetite (2010). Forthcoming in 2011 is Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry.