The Southern Cross 

by Frank Thomas Smith

Gracefully the gaucho gallops through

The pampa's waving windswept grasses;

From time to time he strokes his beard,

Black as the eyes of the country's lasses.

Three long days and three long nights

The gaucho galloped across the plain,

Resting only when his heaving horse

No longer could stand the strain.

Orion patiently makes its rounds,

Dripping dust in the River Plate,

While over the rancho, his destination,

The Southern Cross guards the gate.

The midnight pampa is ghostly gray,

Starlit by a million sources;

The gaucho flicks the deadly blade,

His mind rehearses virile curses.

If his woman had loved another man

During his years of abstinence,

He'd kill them both with a silent stroke

And later think of penitence.

Then, like a matchbox tossed aside,

Appears ahead his rancho, unchanged

Since he left it for the wars;

He spurs his horse like one deranged.

The rancho door flutters open

Flinging out a flare of light;

A woman trembles on the threshold

Straining to see through the night.

"Juan?" she calls in a husky voice

Laced with dregs of hope and dread.

The gaucho flings his knife away,

And bows his shaggy head.

He prays that God will forgive his folly,

And thanks the myriad stars above

For having survived the wounds of war,

And having no cause to kill his love.

More poems by this author are available as an Amazon Kindle eBook: Christ Came to Skopelos

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