Gandydancers

Photo at portolarailroaddays.com

 

Unpretentious immigrants
Cut their garroting bonds
To hardships of homeland
American barons
Resignedly welcomed
Their millions of muscles
The fuel of their sweat
Eager micks, wops and chinks
Flocked to fallow frontiers
Still seeded with promise
Of liberty’s premise
All men are born equal

 

Joined up in work gangs
Sinews straining and bent
To hoisting and heaving
Iron flat-bottomed rails
Thirty-nine feet in length
They settled each ton
Upon rough axe-hewn sleepers
The gandy teams straddled
To brace ill-shod feet
At a signal they plunged
Stout angle-spurred rods
Down with powerful stabs
Into ballast-stone beds

 

Then in well-rehearsed
Straight-armed unison leaned
Hauling back on those rods
With a full-bodied force
Producing sharp tugs
Expelling deep grunts
That relieved their taut backs
Then again and again
Stab, lean, tug and grunt
Stab, lean, tug and grunt
In a rhythmical dance
Beat to primitive chants

 

Each musical phrase
Gained measureless movement
Imperceptible nudge
By slight fractions until
Each rail neat aligned
With its precursor
Here’s when those gandymen
Altered their song trading
Rods for new partners
Sledgehammers and spikes
Danced a new chant with rings
From their alternate swings

 

Mighty blows driving spikes
To secure keen laid curves
Or extend dead-straight runs
Of the westering route
Nineteenth-century
Steam locomotives
Would travel asserting
New manifest destiny
Widening realm where
By free choice all men
Might pursue self-made
Paths to prosperity

 

Those bold gandydancers
Long faded from textbooks
And popular lore
Exhausted their power
Endured every prejudice
Expanding a nation
Gave brawn to its people
Brought pride to their own
So that their sons and mine
Set shoulder to shoulder
With hands full of power
Could dance to new destinies