April 2019 Voicing Art Poetry Reading + Poems

by Sydney Taft Cole
[inspired by Intervals No. 30 and Intervals No. 32 by Peter Curtis]

When asked the question, I pause. It all happened such a long time ago. I still wonder if I did the right thing. My life would most certainly have been different if I had stayed. I am sure they could all see the fear and uncertainty in my eyes and the wrinkles in my forehead as I boarded the train. I held the bar above my head. I held it tight. I put all my confused emotions into that bar. I could practically see it vibrating with my feelings, barely able to hold them all. The bar was made of old metal, likely iron or steel. It felt cold against my sweaty hands. It was discolored, probably from all the hands that had grasped it with their own clamminess as I was then. I slowly unwrapped my fingers from the bar and pulled one of my hands off. I looked at my palm and noticed a collection of brown fragments in the creases of my hand. I wrinkled my nose and shook my head, trying not to think about where the brown could have come from. That train ride seemed long and silent even though it was full of noisy passengers. Children, teenagers, young adults, parents, and grandparents. I saw another girl about my age, but she was smiling and laughing with her friends. I looked at her, and our eyes met for a split second and in that second, I heard silence. It must have been one of the seven-minute intervals of silence within a group of people. I bit the dry skin on my lip. My brown eyes looked down and to the side. That girl and I had made some sort of strange connection in that tiny amount eye contact.

I remember seeing a field as the train whizzed by and felt somehow intrigued. So flat and solitary. I felt solitary too. I was on my own on this journey. In the midst of my internal dialogue, I heard a sound like a cry. It came from the way I had come. I turned and looked back. No one else turned and the chatter did not stop so I wondered if I was the only one who had heard the sound. Perhaps I was hearing the cry of myself a few hours earlier. The cry that had stayed inside my mouth as I boarded the train. The cry that threatened to take me over as I left. I heard it now. Perhaps it was an echo of my own feelings. I will never know. There wasn’t anyone else who turned around. I don’t know what I heard.

Looking back on the experience now, I wonder what had driven my actions. To leave, to take the train, to… As I go back there now I am looking back. Back to the place I was born, to the place where I saw the girl with her friends, to the place where I caught a glimpse of the lonely field, to the place where I first noticed the bar I was holding, to the place where I boarded the train. I turn my head now and just, look back.

ABOUT SYDNEY:

Sydney Taft Cole is honored to have been selected as a Voicing Art reader. She is a Vermont 11th grader who has always enjoyed reading and telling stories. At around age 10, she began writing one-page stories in her journals. Currently, she is intrigued by and enjoys writing imagined internal dialogues. Sydney has been accepted into and will be attending the week-long Young Writers Governor’s Institute this summer. Her writing can be found on the Young Writers Project website and has been published in the Burlington Free Press, the Times Argus, and on the VPR website with an audio recording. She has previously shared her work at Poetry Riot at ArtsRiot. Sydney’s other interests include musical theater (performs with Very Merry Theatre), traveling, spending time with her friends, and hiking mountains.