Midnight Star

Let me tell you a story, it happened long ago When the pines were dancing in the wind on the Mendocino shore The town lights were blazing, there were parties everywhere It was Christmas eve and joy was in the air In the dark and stormy night someone heard the sound Of something breaking on the rocks and a big ship going down Some said they saw a light some swore it was a star That shone out there in the night although it wasn't far In the grey light of morning they walked along the sand Finding pieces of the ship but no sign of her hands Except a tiny pair of shoes and a woman's ragged coat That lay there at the water's edge in the driftwood and the foam Some said she sailed from India or the coast of Oregon Some said by the size of her rigging it was some place far beyond But why she sailed into a port closed down so long ago Or if all on board were lost at sea no one seemed to know The fire was crackling in the stove when he heard the wailing cry Of a little baby in the night somewhere close outside He grabbed his gun and he left the house, he thought it was A cat But he found a woman with a babe, fallen in her tracks She was cold, her eyes were glazed, her skin was ghostly white He tried to make her speak, she just handed him the child And then she passed into that endless sleep And he knelt beside her on the trail and he began to weep Rushing home he stoked the fire and he bathed the weary babe Its skin was brown as a hazel nut, its eyes of greenest jade In age it was about two years or maybe six months more But he had the look of a wise old man who'd been this way before And so he stayed and he filled the heart of the man that he called dad And Shipwreck Star was the only name that boy-child ever had His mama, she lies buried in the manzanita and the pines Where the wild azaleas bloom in the fog-bound summertime