Classic Poem

The track across the desert runs vague toward the north star and then more firmly
Along the clipped butt of the mountain; it curves into a bay of the cliff, where natural cisterns
Keep water in the streaked rock; the people call them las tinajas altas — the high water-jars —
Which every second or third summer a thunderstorm
Fills with clear life; if the lowest is empty one must climb to the next. There is a worked-out silver-mine
Gouged in the cliff beyond them; a single ironwood tree lives on the leakage below them, and here
Men used to camp, coming up from Mexico.

A train of smugglers was lost here long ago. It is said
The tanks were dry then except the highest, and men who wanted the smugglers' goods bailed that one empty,
And ambushed up the mountain, defended it with their rifles. For half the furnace morning the thirsty
Fought up to reach it; when they won it at length it was found dry. The horses could not go on,
They died, and the men died, of thirst and their wounds.

Across the trail, opposite the ironwood tree,
Stands a low mound of rock and sand, where later travellers
Deposited the parched and mummied companions and spread them over with a sheet of sand; there had been already
Two or three graves dug in that barrow. The desert wind respected none of these burials, the sun
And wind played with the bones and flesh until they were dust of the barrow.

A good while later, men found
A vein of silver in the cliff and opened the mine. A little encampment grew up, Mexican laborers
Came with their wives and black-eyed children. One saint's day evening some of the younger people of the camp
Made fire on the mound of half forgotten dead men, opposite the ironwood tree. They ate and drank there
In a circle about the flame, under the desert stars. Rosaria Rivas was one of the girls
In that company; after some months she was found pregnant. She told her parents that when the fire
Died down and the others departed she had remained on the place. In the night chill she had drawn her skirt
(Being all alone) above her knees to warm them at the red embers, then suddenly a swirl of wind
From the east blew dust and ashes into her unsheltered body. So by mere ignorant accident Rosaria
Conceived a child, neither for pleasure nor kindness, only by the innocent malice of the dark wind
Driving the dust of the dead. Her story was easily
Believed; the more because she had little reason for lying. Morality was not so enviously strict
Among them that love had to go masked. Her child was born the due tenth moon after that saint's day,
And she was much pitied, having the pain without the pleasure. But people soon perceived that her son
Was only a little different from other children; they all are mongrels between the present and the past,
Their natures drawing as much from men and beasts long dead as from either parent. Yet in time this child
Of the dust of dead men proved his quality. He throve in fortune; he was never duped nor reckless; his life
Ran smooth because he had nothing future about him. Men do not stumble on bones mostly but on seeds,
And this young man was not of the sad race of Prometheus, to waste himself in favor of the future.