byCarter Revard
The storm has left its tracks - -
a fresh blue sky over
Salt Creek running brown
and quick, and a huge tiger
swallowtail tasting the brilliant
orange flowers beside our trail.
Lightning and thunder've spread
a clean sheet of water over
these last-night possum tracks
straight-walking like a dinosaur in
the mud, and next to these we've
left stippled tracks from soles made
n Hong Kong, maybe with Osage oil.
Lawrence and Wesley pick blue-speckled flints
along our path, one Ponca boy
in braids, one Osage son
in cowboy hat.
Over the blue Pacific, green Atlantic we
have come together here - - possum's
the oldest furred being in this New World, we
are newest in his Old World.
Far older, though - -
but younger too - - the tiger swallowtail
goes sailing from her orange milkweed to
some sky-blue nectar: the wild morning
glories will spring up
where she's touched down, marking
her NEXT year's trail.
Makes me wonder - -
if archaeologists should ever dig our prints
with Possum's here, whether they'll see
the winged beings who moved
in brightness near us, leaving no tracks except
in flowers and
these winged words.
From An Eagle Nation, University if Arizona Press.