El Paso,
A city I have never seen
Until last night
In a dream.
It welcomed me
With swirling light
And dancing color
And told me
I belonged –
For here there would be forever love
And I hugged and I hugged
This city that loved me
Sight unseen,
It seemed.
Then my mother
Stood beside me
And I shook with excitement
For I thought she was dead.
But no, she said,
She was just sojourning
In San Francisco instead.
I awoke and laughed aloud
For it’s always good to
See her again
If only in a dream and
How like her to claim
She had merely taken
A twenty year vacation.
Then I laughed once again
When I remembered:
San Francisco, St. Francis,
My mother’s favorite saint in Heaven;
El Paso, the pass,
The road on the way.
Oh, dream, you are so clever
How could I ever
Manage without you?