65. TRESTLE

Off the main highways

Small towns are tucked into the Oregon wilderness

Connected with winding mountain roads

And lonesome railroads.

Who knows how lonesome such a place can be?

I know a girl who loved her child

And she needed money

And even more importantly she needed a car

And the only job she could find

Meant she had to leave her child for a couple weeks

In the care of others

While she went north to a little Oregon wilderness town

Where she drove cars from point a to point b...

In return for this work she would be given a car of her own.

Whenever she wasn't working she walked

Around and around the little town in the wilderness

Thinking of her child.

If you met her and talked with her

You would find her voice soft and husky with suppressed emotions

You would see her eyes always looking off over trees

Over mountains, across miles of highways

If you proved to be a friend worthy of confidence

She would tell you that all she could think about these days

Was her child so far away

The child never left her mind for a moment.

Two weeks to get a car...

A car so mother and child would be mobile, unstuck

Free and clear...

As she rested on the cold iron of the trestle

The mother's love she carried in her heart,

The core of her great beauty,

Was another lonesome Oregon song