12 O'Clock Freight

Away, four miles, I heard the Santa Fe
Go down the track. and I could see the sight.
A freighter pulling out with clang of cars,
Sealed and sullen in the flowered night,

At home and in my mind I saw her draw
Her secrets where black fences line the rail.
And choking orange groves abandoned to
No rain and flaky pestilence of scale,

And then by palmy drives and boulevards
Where stucco gleams beside the carob-tree,
And Spanish patios in vain enclose
Lone hearts from Iowa and Kankakee,

And past Anita's wealthy meadows where
Her smouldering pea-cocks doze among her hounds
With sapphire laces folded in the dark
That daily traIl and twitch about the grounds.

On by the oaks whose forest stoops upon
The listing hills where once the drift of deer
Drew down with winter's waters green.
A herd of dreams in glassy atmosphere.

Here comes, she comes, here comes the glooming train
Flying her bloody smoke. People m bed
Rouse halfway, and made lonely at the sound
Touch hands and touch their hands to a dear head.

And tell me, night, the names of all the men
Who ride the freight train, stretched upon the cars,
Heavy and motherless and rockasleep,
Their hungry faces pointed at the stars.

What destiny. dark suburb. what asylum
Of rot will they slip off into at last.
When on the final freighter. oh caboose.
The ruby jerk and leer of light go past?

Into the valley. long San Gabriel.
The train crawls bleak and moaning down the track.
And from the rail the starlight spurts again
With sudden gush of brightness after black.