Freight

1847: Time is ripe
For faith to find new trails, to build a Zion
At distant end of rough and rutted tracks
That crawl, with each day's march, across a land
That wears the trekkers weary to the bond.
Work and meager fare, sun and wind
Have turned them lean and brown and hard--fit
For stern and trying tasks; fit to go
When others question if they have within
The needful strength. They go and question not
The wisdom of their choice for faith is theirs.
Axes, plows, long-barreled guns--the tools
Men use to turn untrammeled wilderness
Into a home--are here beneath the bows
Of lumbering, creaking wagons the oxen drag.
Beneath the bows are hoarded, scanty stores
Of corn and wheat, with dormant germs of life
To make a desert blossom as the rose.
Precious freight. Yet not so valued, these,
As other freight that goes along with them,
A weightless freight that's carried in the hearts
And souls of weary, bearded men; of tired
And valiant women; of children yet too young
To guess the price they pay--or the prize they bear!
They carry courage, strong as homespun cloth,
Courage that wears like patience, or the Quiet,
Deep need of home. And hope they take with them--
Hope that droops beside a lonely grave
And seems to die, yet somehow lives and lends
The tattered, brown, intrepid band a voice
To lift in solemn paean: "All is well."
Courage, hope, long-cherished dreams of homes
And faith as real as axe or corn or plow--
This is the freight they take, prize, pass on.