switching trains... it is almost every day that i switch trains at west 4th street. i am not the only person to do so, of course. if i were, there would probably be no way to switch trains there. i get out of the f train, walk up two flights of stairs, wait for the e train and then take a seat on the east side of the car, so when the sardine box fills up with all those long islanders and new jersians at 34th street, as well as all those upstaters, westchesters and connecticuters at 42nd street i still have a chance slip out the almost closing door at 50th street. (that's where work wants me.) so almost every day i switch trains. i switch from the f to the e, at west 4th. yesterday the train switched on me at west 4th. instead of me taking the stairs and waiting for the e, it was the f that switched the tracks, turned to an e, and delivered me without a transfer to 50th street and 8th avenue. i remained in my seat. just me. i was the only person left in the car when all stood clear of the closing doors. it felt very unusual to have this happen to me. though i guess i actually happen to it? it felt as if the train had switched. and it did. except that i was there, really enjoying it. i was late and there, it happened. as if i wanted the fruit from a high branch and the tree just fell. as if i were a hand longing for a clap and... ... hmm... somehow though every ride on every train is a gigantic miracle. and every seat on any given morning is a bit of a miracle too. and it is not the tree falling that is the miracle. the tree itself and the fruit on it is. or the space around it is. the sets of stairs on west 4th street are. the thought of the stairs is. trains running below ground at all times are. the metal their wheels are made of and the tracks on which they run, touching with just a tiny portion of their circumference, again and again, seemingly never ending, or perhaps never not. at the end of the day what i found out was that there happens to be too much train in me. i will need to donate some of myself somewhere, to reduce the amount of train track in my body. here we are that one huge living thing. a miracle amazed by itself. look at it. here is the inside of your eyes, between this word here and the thought of it in you. and yet they are both just openings to the thought that builds the world and makes trains switch.