I take the 5:15 train out of Penn Station because dusk comes around six, and I want to watch the sun set behind the sheer black hills on the western side of the Hudson. When the train comes out of Manhattan the sun is already hovering just an inch above the skyline like a mushroom cloud, like New York City has been nuked and we’re lucky to escape alive. This apocalyptic feel doesn’t go away, as we head north into the gathering dark. The sunset is orange and purple fire burning just past the horizon; we’re observing the end of the world from Amtrak’s overpriced comfort, and look, there’s even an outlet for my laptop. Tugboats push barges upriver almost against their will. We pass through vast silent yards full of trains, utterly alone for having outlived the men who made them. My brain thinks Shakespeare, Kerouac. Part of why we read is to process moments like this, where the beauty of the world is inseparable from its sadness, when our tingly joy at being alive to see things like purple-orange sunsets bumps up against our knowledge of the loneliness and sadness and suffering that is also part of being alive-

which by and by black night doth take away

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it…

I took all these photos! Through the window glass, with a crappy digital camera.

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