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PRAIRIE SONGS
From the grinding wheels of a through-bound train
Then, for a space, as the whistle screams,
Nacozari awakes from dreams.
Women and children, boys and men
Stream to the station platform then,
Eager to gaze from its long plank walk,
With gesturing arms and rapid talk,
At the huge machine like a comet hurled
From the mystical zone of the outer world.
Thus it was on one summer's day, While the land in its noontide slumber lay With never a living creature near Save a lizard, perhaps, by a cactus spear Basking himself in the fervid heat, Or, high aloft, like a pirate fleet, A flock of vultures on lazy wing Circling wide in a watchful ring, That into the street of the desert town A long, slow freight came rolling down, Laden with goods of Northern yield For Mexican mine and town and field.
Rumbling in with failing speed It came to rest like a tired steed, With the mogul engine's dusty flank Close by the massive water-tank, As if it longed, like a living thing, To quench its thirst at the cooling spring Of the thousand-foot artesian well, Sunk through the desert's crusted shell.
Just as it stopped with a grinding jar
Rattling back from car to car,
Out of the engine-cab swung clear
Jesus Garcia, the engineer,
Sooted and grimed to his finger-tips
But the lilt of a song on his smiling lips,
For he was handsome and young and strong
And love was the theme of his murmured song. |
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