PHOTO CREDIT: Tom McLaughlin. This photo is used with the permission of Tim McLaughlin, who retains all rights.

“A girl sits on her car,

an old tan Oldsmobile

broken down over its tires,

and plays the radio.”1

In “Walking at Noon Near the Burlington Depot in Lincoln, Nebraska,” former US Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser presents five images of life in Lincoln. The images of factory workers, a warehouse, an old car, a tattered butterfly on the grill of a truck, and an empty grocery cart miles from its store capture the sadness of mid afternoon in this midwestern city. The lines are offered “–to the memory of James Wright,” whose poems often captured life in his small post-industrial hometown of Martins Ferry, Ohio.

The Burlington Northern Railroad Depot, or Lincoln Station, was built in 1927 to replace an earlier Victorian style depot in the same location, which had been built in 1880 near the beginning of Lincoln’s railroad history. The depot went out of use in 2012 when a new station was built several blocks to the west. Despite being named in the title of the poem, Kooser’s descriptions never touch on the depot itself, instead focusing on snapshots of life in the streets and alleys nearby. The poem, which originally appeared in One World at a Time, would have been written in 1985 or earlier when the depot was still in use.

Read more about Lincoln Station on Wikipedia and on the Downtown Lincoln Association website. Read more about Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985 and Ted Kooser on Amazon or at a local library.

1Kooser, Ted. “Walking at Noon Near the Burlington Depot in Lincoln, Nebraska.” Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh, 1985. 118. Print.

Have an idea for a Daily Spot? Send us an email.