It is early September of 1919,And I am waiting for the train to arrive.Impatient and worried, I check the timeOn my pocket watch and look northwardAlong the railroad tracks and search the facesOf others. Round faces, drawn faces,Some so dark and some calcite white.The newsboy shouting a headlineThat I don't understand, the pleasant smokeOf a cigar named for a presidentWho I despise, the boarding house ladiesPassing by with vegetables in baskets, the detectiveEyeing me. He is as impatient and worriedAs I am.I hope for much, but this road is longAnd we are traveling on the blind and in the dark,Tramps on a locomotive named the History Express.I have crossed two continents and an oceanAnd wiped the cinders of despair from my eyes.I will be pleased if the day will end withBeefsteak and beer and a good argumentBetween friends in my language andIf I have learned to unravel some English words.I check my watch again, catch the eye of the detective.I will count it good fortune if I am the firstIn my family to die in a bed that is mine.And if we can win this strike, and thenThe revolution!Our images are captured in a photograph takenFrom a wagon, the German photographer forever unhappyWith his work. The stout detective will scowl forever.The boarding house ladies’ smiles will be forever blurred.The barber will never drop his straight razor.The newsboy will be eleven years old forever, his mouthOpen in a raucous shout. The station master will remainThin and gaunt. The sky will always threaten rainAnd the horses will never die. My paesano's cigarWill never turn to ash. Dozens of people standing with meOn the platform, all of them anxious,Will be forever surprised by the camera's flash.And I will forever squint and hide my hands in my pocketsAnd reason against hope.Nothing will record our handshake, calloused hands toCalloused hands and then hands to shoulders,Our grim smiles and whispered greetings.The newsboy will recall years later for his grandchildrenThat he saw those two union men at the stationJust weeks before all hell broke loose, how the one of themShook his hand and asked his age and wouldn't take changeFor the newspaper he bought, his name echoed in the headline.The detective remained deadpan, silently weighed his options.The taste of the beer and beefsteak will go unremarked,As will the boarding house lady's brogue.“I hope you win for our boys, Bill.” The newspapers will recordThe shouting in the streets, the violence, but not that nightWhen I found tenderness and rest.I missed the late train carrying the mail. A letter from the futureRemained unopened in the boarding house parlor, grew oldWith Mrs. O'Connor, yellowed and was discarded one day.“Hey, Berto, you lost that strike. Scores were blacklisted.The wind blew them north and west. The Spanish flu came and went.And two years later the flood hit. One day you were running a machineAnd probably did not hear the rumble above you stop beforeThe mine roof came down. You didn't die in bed, or even withYour given name. The metal crosses marking your graves rusted awayLong ago. That ground in the cemetery is sunken and soft now.The mine and the mill shut down, but not before we took a bitFrom the bosses. We work hard now, but this earth is finally ours.Red flags are everywhere. And, hey, Berto, I found an old pocket watchAnd a dented lunch bucket the other day.Were they yours?”