December Travel -- A Poem

Joe and Maria on a Train to Lordsburg – December 1942

Maria, I’d have sworn our lives were buttoned up and fairly squared away

Loose ends gathered, letters answered, bills all paid and taxes reconciled

But just when our tomorrows look as crystal clear as that new rising star

God tricks in and nails us with this unexpected soon-to-be-born child

On top of that the government insists that you and I must take a train

Way across the desert out to Lordsburg – eight hundred miles away

Back to that rustic county seat where it’s recorded you and I were born --

It couldn’t be worse timing, what with you expecting any day

Maria, there are times I think our life is like this westbound railroad track

That lulls us into dreaming with its lullaby of soft clackety-clack

And then some switch malfunctions and our car’s rerouted into no-man’s land

Bound towards some unknown destination on a journey we’d have never planned

But as we start to come to grips with this unwanted, bitter twist of fate

We soon begin to recognize that these fresh tracks still lead toward heaven’s gate

I’m hoping we’ll reach Lordsburg long before the sun gets buried by the dark

Perhaps in some hotel next to the depot we can slip December’s gloom

I swear I’d even settle for some nearby good Samaritan’s warm barn

As long as it had straw enough to let you rock this stranger in your womb

Maria, don’t you feel it, feel the force of our impending destiny

As if the driving wheel were pulling towards some arcing rainbow’s sacred end

Pulling towards some shining future just beyond the twilight’s silvered gleam

Pulling towards some splendid glory just around eternity’s next bend

Maria, there are times I think our life is like this westbound railroad track

That lulls us into dreaming with its lullaby of soft clackety-clack

But then some switch misleads us and our car’s rerouted into parts unknown

And despite all of our stitching and unstitching - our itinerary’s blown

And yet I have this notion that somehow our child will rise above this earth

And multitudes will be transformed exactly at the moment of his birth