For those who’ve taken the AP English Test …


Tracks
by JW Konschak

The train, like luck, shall someday chug			      1
through th’ garret of my guarded home
that seems so cluttered like its smoke,
whose fumes, like fluttered rooms, they spoke: 
how clean it is when something’s broke.			             5
When smoke my thought of order smote
the tangled strings will seem the truth,
at last, someday, I hope.

A dullard or in sly-boots?
That train, I’d like to know.					      10
Along set tracks or on tossed routes?
By which way does it go?
Chugs “torchon lace—” chugs “torchon lace.”
Seems random torments ordered space,			
like tomorrows that we’ll never face				      15
and places that we’ll never go.

That train, like God, shall someday chug,
and witnessing the train’s shrill cries
I’ll see our mess in ordered piles.				
For, fools we’ve pulled and stacked the miles  		      20
of track in vain from her to hide, 
but when her prod throws them aside,
a greater order rules than I
this day can ever know.						

When smoke my thoughts of order choke		                   25
The mangled miles will seem the truth
At last, someday, I ever hope 
someday I’ll fin’lly know.






1. In line 19, “our mess” refers to:
	a. What we perceive as a mess, but actually is not.
	b. The chaos we create for ourselves by trying to control things.
	c. The pollution that trains produce.
	d. The things we disguise by organizing.

2. In lines 20 – 21, “her” refers to:
	a. The train
	b. Mother Nature.
	c. The wife of the engineer.
	d. The truth.

3. All of the following are true about rhythm of the poem EXCEPT:
	a. Imitating the sound of a train.
	b. Contains Iambic Tetrameter.
	c. Contains Trochaic Tetrameter and Triameter
	d. Contains Iambic Trimeter.

4. The train most clearly symbolizes:
	a. Luck
	b. God
	c. Fate
	d. Strength

5. What statement best summarizes the central idea of the poem?
	a. Trying to control things only make things more chaotic.
	b. There is a clear relationship between chaos and order.
	c. The truth is something that can never be known.
	d. We fail to realize the order of seemingly random events until later. 

6. The words in the last lines of each stanza carry what connotation?
	a. Regret
	b. Longing
	c. Melancholy
	d. Confusion

7. In lines 15-16, what do “tomorrows that we’ll never face” and “places that     
we’ll never go” have most in common, as expressed by the poem’s theme?
	a. They express longing for something unobtainable.
	b. They are examples of man’s plans that are changed by Fate.
	c. They are stops on the train’s schedule.
	d. They are things that only God can understand.