Tanka · Love
After the Train
the train pulls away
and you wave until it bends
out of sight, then stand
a moment longer, waving
at the empty shining track
Original poem © QuillOak — personal sharing is permitted.
“After the Train” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/waving-at-the-track-tanka
Quick facts
- Poem
- After the Train
- Poet
- The QuillOak Editors
- Length
- 5 lines
- Form
- Tanka, Short Poems
- Themes
- Love, Missing You, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 5 lines · one 5-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 7-syllable lines.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a tanka, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Original QuillOak text. Personal sharing is permitted; other reuse requires permission.
- Author record
- The QuillOak Editorstoday
- Source record
- QuillOak originalAfter the Train, authored for QuillOak by The Quillery
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 59461477b70fd225…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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