Trip

We started from a station in the city,
Rough night, wind blowing rain slantwise
On the train windows.
Outside was the elegance of the station,
Hothouse roses in the areas
Of people saying goodbye,
Good luck.
We were the ones going
Into a tunnel of dark
Crying those going-away blues, going-away blues
In our long black woolen stockings and button shoes.
Hail, hail the gang's all here
Sang my father to the mahogany walls.
We were not listening and would not sing
What do we care. But we heard him.
The train pulled out of the station into Halloween,
The train pulled into November and the passengers between
Pumpkin and pumpkin gave us some good scares
To wile away the Halloween blues.
Three days and nights in the vestibules
Between cars, roaring and clashing at the heavy doors,
Closer to home than the outside scenes.
Then a little
Five minute flash of home
El Paso is The Pass, my mother said
But it was rather
A burning deck of people in sombreros
Sitting against the sun. Rejoicing.
Now we could see orange trees, smell orange, that was a
wonder,
And came through that garden to a narrow track
Of train on sand between mountains
Splitting against their ledges,
Nearly empty
The coaches, ledges, rocking along, seeking
Places to stop, with yellow stations
Under pepperwood, under water tank, under signal
Under sky
Nearly empty but our smoke blew in it.
All the baggage is gathered together, we stand
At the last vestibule, we are saying goodbye,
Good luck.
We pile down, look at the little
Boards of the station, turn away
Back to our black coaches, all of us in a row
In our black woolen stockings in the burning sun
To watch them leave us, pull away one by one
With a great grinding
And they are gone.
And I see, what do we see, all of us,
Stretching my gasping eyes without air or kindness,
Sandy ranges of an infinite distance
Under a white hot sky under
Infinite distance
Beyond a plain, a sea, a life of sand
Of infinite distance
No place to end. A breadth
Hurtful to any small heart
A scope which beached our débris on its shore
Abandoned, lost from a tide of life.
Extended
Not toward us but away,
But we went to it.
Thirsty we drank its infinite sources
Eyes brimmed with its tears.
A hotelkeeper in pith hat and jodhpurs
Drove our baggage into the Springs, in oasis,
But we had gone farther away.