Redefining Who We Are

Where I grew up there were no tracks
For trains to run through town.
It seems the Founding Fathers
Either chose not to seek the rail
Or, didn't have the political clout
Or, perhaps had located our small town
In the wrong place.

I love to hear the trains today as
Their lonely whistle blows
To warn cars and pedestrians
To get out of the way because they are
Coming through and can't
Easily stop to accommodate those
Who would be laggards.

I think about the commerce that rides
Upon the cars as the clickety-clack
Of their passage unfolds and
The sound of mighty engines rolls
Away among the warehouses and
Other buildings that line
The shiny rails and blackened ties

And I think of the history that I have read
Of how the first tracks were placed
Across a country still wild and covered
With game and people who didn't
Understand what was happening that
Would destroy their way of life.

Descendants of those early crews have
Blended into the populace for the most
Part but, enclaves still exist in places
Like San Francisco where the Chinese
Origins are clear and the culture
Has endured but, there are other

Groups who played their part in building
These great roads that opened up the
New acquisitions to settlers who sought
Cheap land and opportunity.  They had names
With roots in Ireland or in
Italy or perhaps in other places

That produced those who followed, speaking
German and Scandinavian languages
Until subsequent generations blended with
The English pioneers into a much more
Homogenous type until the resurgent
Darker pigments of the Southwest

And the newly freed of the Southeast spread throughout
The land and today are changing once again
The ethnic boundaries that have long defined,
Yet long diffused genetic material into
A slowly evolving amalgamation that
Transcends origins and borders

But, gains a new identity, as yet unclear,
Just as the rails which first
Drove across the trackless, undefined
Wilderness opened the way and the borders
To a newness that penetrated every aspect
Of who and what we are to become.