II. Powhatan’s Daughter: 5. Indiana

...and read
her in a
mother’s
farewell gaze.

The morning glory, climbing the morning long
Over the lintel on its wiry vine,
Closes before the dusk, furls in its song
As I close mine...

And bison thunder rends my dreams no more
As once my womb was torn, my boy, when you
Yielded your first cry at the prairie’s door...
Your father knew

Then, though we’d buried him behind us, far
Back on the gold trail — then his lost bones stirred...
But you who drop the scythe to grasp the oar
Knew not, nor heard

How we, too, Prodigal, once rode off, too —
Waved Seminary Hill a gay good-bye...
We found God lavish there in Colorado
But passing sly.

The pebbles sang, the firecat slunk away
And glistening through the sluggard freshets came
In golden syllables loosed from the clay
His gleaming name.

A dream called Eldorado was his town,
It rose up shambling in the nuggets’ wake,
It had no charter but a promised crown
Of claims to stake.

But we,— too late, too early, howsoever —
Won nothing out of fifty-nine — those years —
But gilded promise, yielded to us never,
And barren tears...

The long trail back! I huddled in the shade
Of wagon-tenting looked out once and saw
Bent westward, passing on a stumbling jade
A homeless squaw —

Perhaps a halfbreed. On her slender back
She cradled a babe’s body, riding without rein.
Her eyes, strange for an Indian’s, were not black
But sharp with pain

And like twin stars. They seemed to shun the gaze
Of all our silent men — the long team line —
Until she saw me — when their violet haze
Lit with love shine...

I held you up — I suddenly the bolder,
Knew that mere words could not have brought us nearer.
She nodded — and that smile across her shoulder
Will still endear her

As long as Jim, your father’s memory, is warm.
Yes, Larry, now you’re going to sea, remember
You were the first — before Ned and this farm,—
First-born, remember —

And since then — all that’s left to me of Jim
Whose folks, like mine, came out of Arrowhead.
And you’re the only one with eyes like him —
Kentucky bred!

I’m standing still, I’m old, I’m half of stone!
Oh, hold me in those eyes’ engaging blue;
There’s where the stubborn years gleam and atone,—
Where gold is true!

Down the dim turnpike to the river’s edge —
Perhaps I’ll hear the mare’s hoofs to the ford...
Write me from Rio... and you’ll keep your pledge;
I know your word!

Come back to Indiana — not too late!
(Or will you be a ranger to the end?)
Good-bye... Good-bye... oh, I shall always wait
You, Larry, traveller —
stranger,
son,
— my friend —