The Poem of Flowers and Blue

To anyone else it would’ve looked like a desolate place: the wood rotting, planks up-heaving and long grass creeping up the sides.

But to me it was everything. 

Now, I’m too young to have seen it in its heyday, but the stories told to me painted a clear picture in my head.

Standing here, all of the pieces finally fit together: Icarus, a necklace of bottle caps, the boy with money in his socks, the girl with flowers in her hair and poems in her hand. The story unfolded slowly and delicately, piece by piece in front of my eyes.

It was a busy day at the train station. They described it in different ways to me that varied depending on the day, sometimes it was dark and cloudy, other days the sun was scorching bright. 

So I’ve always imagined it as a day with large clouds speckled across the skyline, but with the sun glowing against a bright blue backdrop.

Not overly cloudy, not vibrantly sunny, more of an in-between.

The tracks were well oiled and pristine, the station itself sanded and stained to perfection. It was decades from its eventual disrepair. This was not the station that people saw and thought little of, but one that people were sure to go to. They needed to, in order to travel.

She was waiting on a bench for her parents to arrive on the train. She sat alone and read peacefully, tuning out the hurried bustle of the world around her. 

She heard him before she saw him, that’s always what she told me. She could hear the rustle of metal rubbing against metal and a disapproving tisk coming from the ticket master. 

“Back again, Amias?” the ticket master said, his gruff voice clear and noticeable. 

“Yes, I am,” a boy - presumably Amias - said. “And I have more money this time.”

She could almost hear the shake of the ticket masters head. “It won’t be enough. It never is.”

“But look at what I have,” Amias said. 

And as if commanded by his words, she finally turned to see him. He had dark black messy hair, which was the only visible part of his head, since he had bent down. She was unsure what for, and then saw that he was pulling dollars and coins from his long socks and placing them on the ticket table one by one.

What she could also see was the tattered state of his clothes, which were wrinkled beyond presentable. And he was adorned with a necklace of bottle caps strung around his neck, which was quite the fashion statement.

As he lifted his head - the bottle caps clinking against each other - their eyes met. She always told me how she instantly registered the mixture of green and brown in his eyes. His eyes were curious and bright, and they viewed her with a mixture of surprise and interest. But the connection lasted mere seconds before his gaze refocused on the ticket master.

“It’s not enough,” the ticket master said. 

“Did you even count?” Amias asked, his brow furrowed in disappointment.

“I did, and you’re two dollars short,” the ticket master said. “Maybe you’ll have better luck next week.”

“I won’t have this much next week,” Amias said, shaking his head. “I need this ticket now. I have to get out of here.”

“Sorry, kid, no can do,” the ticket master said. 

She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it. Maybe it was the unwanted responsibility of the money her parents had given her, or the depressive expression on the boy’s face, but within moments she had walked over to stand beside the boy, two dollars in her hand. 

She placed the money next to Amias’ assortment of coins and crumpled up bills.

“Does this cover the rest of the cost?” she asked.

The ticket master was dumbfounded for a moment, just as Amias was. He fumbled for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, yeah it does.”

He scooped the money into his booth and handed Amias a ticket. The boy and girl walked away from the booth and she realized that he was around her age, which would’ve been fourteen at the time. 

Amias looked back at the booth, then at his long-sought-after ticket and finally at the girl - the stranger - who had helped him.

His descriptions always allowed me to imagine her quite clearly. He claimed his first impression of her was her blue eyes. They were a bright and clear blue that struck him at first sight as perfectly beautiful. Her hair was a layer of blonde that framed her face in a perfect way. A unique point were the flowers weaved into the braids of her hair. He took all of this in, but what he registered the most about her was what she was holding.

It wasn’t a bound book like expected, but a collection of loose papers. When he looked down, he could see lines on the pages that he recognized as poetry. She pulled the papers back as she saw him looking. 

This caused him to look up at her and his first words to her were, “Poetry, huh?” They would both remember those words.

“Yeah,” she said, almost defiantly, surprised that he hadn’t said thank you.

But he didn’t say it. Instead, he just nodded. “Poetry, flowers and blue.”

Now she was confused, but he understood perfectly. Those three words summarized her for him. They would be what he remembered her by, those small fragments.

“Do you read poetry?” she asked.

“A little bit,” he said. 

“Like what?” she asked, not believing him.

He thought for a moment, thinking of a poem he could recite. Finally, he settled on one “‘I’m No One, who are you? Are you no one too?’”

He surprised her at that moment. It wouldn’t be the last time.

Suddenly, a loud train whistle blew. 

“That’s your train, isn’t it?” she asked. “I noticed the time on the stamp.”

“Clever,” Amias said, registering the feeling of the ticket in his hand for the first time. The ticket that would take him away from his terrible life and towards a better future. But he didn’t let her see how much this meant to him. Instead, he tilted his chin up and smiled at her. “You know, I never did get your name.”

“It’s Rose,” she said. 

“Rose,” he repeated, pronouncing it clearly and carefully. “Like the flowers in your hair.”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

A moment passed. 

“And? Don’t you want to know my name?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I already know it. Amias.”

“See, clever, just like I said,” Amias said.

The train whistled again and this time both of them looked at the metal hull wrapped in steam.

“I better go,” Amias said. He looked at her and hesitated for a moment. Then, he spoke the words Rose had originally longed for. “Thank you.”

She smiled, satisfied. “Of course.”

He grinned back and then left. She watched as he entered the compartment door without a single look back and couldn’t help but feel like she’d missed something. 

She had, of course. But she wouldn’t realize it for a while, not until she saw him again. 

It was two years before that happened.

It would've been an overstatement to say he was living a much better life, but it was a different one, which was what mattered. But that’s another story too far from the train station. One that involves hard work, long hours, and little sleep.

After two years, Amias was finally returning home for reasons he never really explained to me, but I suppose he didn’t need to.

Rose was still stuck in the same situation as always, just more mature then she had once been. Her older sister had just been married and she was returning home after the ceremony, her parents staying behind for a bit. She had boarded a train and was sitting alone in a compartment as it rolled out of the city and into the country nearby.

She was reading poetry, of course and was expecting a quiet and boring ride back home. 

It’s a good thing for me how far from expectation the ride really was.

He couldn’t find a compartment and was wandering around, trying to find a place to sit. It was by chance that the first compartment he opened was hers.

Poetry, flowers and blue were what he remembered her by. There were no flowers this time, but there was poetry, and there was blue. 

Because of these three rules, he recognized her first and said her name quietly, but she could hear it, “Rose.”

And just hearing him say her name sparked the memory inside her. “Amias?”

“Rose!” he repeated, louder.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“What are you doing here?” he asked right back, a wide grin forming on his face as he sat down across from her.

“I’m going home,” she said. “Are you . . . wait, are you going back?”

He nodded.

“But you seemed like you really wanted to leave,” Rose said.

Amias nodded, grimacing. “I did, but sometimes you have to face your demons.”

She didn’t have to ask: he could tell that she wanted to know. So he told a story of a neglecting father, a long-gone mother and an older brother who had abandoned him. An older brother who had now returned home. An older brother that he had boarded a train to see again.

“After all that?” she asked when he was done, finally breaking a long silence.

“After all that,” he said, nodding. 

He explained nothing more, instead a silence fell upon them again. 

It was the - she had told me - that Rose realized just how much he had changed from her memory. Both of them were taller and older, but he had grown more muscle from working and his hair was a little longer, but still messy. He had new cuts and bruises and a more tired look about him. But his eyes were still as bright as she remembered.

This train ride involved both of them catching up on life. All of the details were never told to me, I doubt they were all clearly remembered. But what had been recalled was when poetry became the topic again. 

“So, you still read poetry,” he pointed out.

“I do,” she said. Then she noticed something. “You don’t have your bottle caps anymore.”

He smiled and dug into his pocket. He pulled out a more battered version of the necklace with a couple of missing caps, but the general foundation still remained. 

“I stand corrected,” she said, catching his contagious smile.

“You certainly do,” he said. 

“And do you still carry money in your socks?” Rose asked.

“Always,” he said. “You’ll find it’s rather efficient.” Amias hesitated a moment, then spoke again. “Do you always venture into trains and train stations alone?”

“No,” Rose said. “It just so happens that each time I’ve encountered you, I have been alone.”

“It must be a sign that we were meant to meet,” Amias said.

“Maybe,” Rose said.

The journey was long and the destination was bittersweet for both arrivals. It wasn’t until they were pulling into the station that Rose realized how quiet Amias had become.

“Is it because you’re back?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Well - yes -, but also no.”

“Then what is it?” 

“I, um,” he scratched his head, looking guilty beyond measure. “I might have stolen a poem from you back when we first met.”

“What?” Rose hadn’t expected that.

“Yeah, I know, I felt bad about it, but I wanted something to read, so I just kind of took it.” Amias fished in his pocket and pulled out a creased and wrinkled piece of paper, the ink of the words fading away with use and time. “You can have it back now. I committed it to memory.”

She opened it up and saw a poem of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun. Rose had admitted to me that she had forgotten the poem existed. But the moment she knew it again, she would always remember.

They departed the train station two weeks before school began. Rose looked for him when she walked in town, but never saw him. She had begun to believe he had headed back to the city and she’d never see him again.

You should be able to tell by now that fate refuses to part these two. 

This was proven to Rose on the day those two weeks expired. She was sitting at an aging desk in an exhausted chair, surrounded by other disgruntled children.

She was reading - she reads a lot - whenever the teacher was talking to someone out of sight. She didn’t look up - she was barely even aware - until the name was spoken.

“Class, welcome our new transfer: Amias,” Mrs. Brendwall said. 

Roses’ head whipped up from her drawing to see him standing in the doorway. He was looking directly at her, his hazel eyes watching her with a careful joy. 

And now that they had time on their side, the connection would strengthen even more.

The next several months that stretched into years were never told to me in full detail. But I knew that they were full of happy times and good times. Tales of adventures and schoolwork lingered across this lost time of bliss.

If only it had lasted longer.

For there was a war that had been brewing and a draft had been put in place. They were both legal adults at the time, though they still felt like teenagers. And of course, although they dared to wish and hope and dream, it was not to be.

For Amias was drafted.

And so we have returned to the station.

A couple of years had passed, so the paint was fraying and the wood was sagging, but it was still young and usable - full of travelers going to and from.

This time there were no flowers and no poetry, but he could see the clear and always beautiful blue, even through the welling tears that threatened to spill out. 

He looked at her and she looked at him. The train whistle blew and they knew he had to leave. 

But before he could go, she took his hand and placed something in it. He looked and saw a stack of small papers in his hand. He could tell by a line on the top page what it was.

“Poetry, huh?” he asked, smiling at her. And they both remembered those words as the first he’d ever spoken to her. And she finally smiled in response.

“Yeah,” she said. 

The whistle blew again: his final warning to board the train. He looked at her and she looked at him and there was so much unsaid in those moments. So much they both wanted to say.

But instead, Amias turned and walked onto the train without a second look back. 

It was like saying goodbye for the first time all over again.

And in those months of brief letters and infrequent updates, he had never reminded her more of Icarus then he did now. She knew how he worked, and - from the war-torn stories I know -, he would always be willing to fly too close to the sun. It was only a matter of time before his wings fell away and wax would dribble down his arms as he plummeted to the ocean.

That’s what scared her the most, was him. Would he do something that would cause them to be torn apart forever?

The months passed in agony for both. I know stories of his, but that takes us too far from the station. Too far from a train that yearns to come back home.

One day, she found a group of dusty bottle caps held together on a string. She cleaned and polished them to her heart’s desire and hung them on the wall. Not as a memorial, but as a reminder.

And as if the memory of the bottle caps held them together, she soon got word that he was coming home.

It wouldn’t be the last time at the station, but it would be the last of significant memory.

She waited and waited on the same bench she first saw him, watching for the train. 

It was late, but I suppose things never bother to be punctual when you really need them to be.

The train came and he emerged. Amias was exactly as she remembered. Dark messy hair and glowing hazel eyes.

And she was even better than he remembered.

Now, the next few moments he had always explained it in such simple lights.

Flowers in one hand, her poems in his pocket and the blue of her eyes all in one. It was perfect. So perfect that he knew what he had to do in the moment, what he had only half planned.

He was on one knee, the flowers in her hands and a ring in his. Screw any correlation with Icarus, he was home now and he was with her. He saw the sun and he avoided it because who needed the sun when he had her. 

Don’t worry. She said yes.

And now I could see between the corroding wood, chipped paint and wayward train tracks.

A place that’s home to a story of meaning to me, but mostly to my grandparents. 

It’s their story, really. The story of flowers, poetry and blue. Of Icarus, war and heart. 

There are other ones of course: stories of a boy and his necklace of bottle caps, stories of a girl who fell in love with poetry, stories of going through parenthood and raising a wild child.

But I suppose your ticket only passed you through one station. You’re lucky that it was this one. 

They sure were.