Classic Poem

When August noons are hot, good it is to lie
Under an oak or spreading maple, in dry weeds
And grass that, dying, tell of sunburnt summer,
Loosing the soul toward a fellowship
With the unseen wanderer who snatches up
A handful of dust and playfully,
With a child's gesture, whirls it upward.
Good it is to look into the blue,
Between the shading leaves that shift and move;
And looking, dream and muse and speculate
What is the sky? — What is Infinity?
And what this kind, old mother-nurse who bears
Us tenderly until the evening, when she locks
Our eyelids down in a great peace and folds
Us into sleep — What is a weed? — a tree? — an ant?
What is a dust-whirl?
Perhaps, the finely powdered brain and skull
Of one who long ago in a most ancient time
Nursed at the breast awhile, lay in the mother lap
And looked into the sky — looking — wondering.
Perhaps I — who now am tossed in tireless arms,
Will, as a whirl of yellow dust, hold for a moment
The speculative eye of one who then will muse,
As I now do " What is the sky, and space
And life and death and what the purpose
Or no-purpose of a yellow dust whirl? "
So loafing in the dying grass along
A country road we only hear at first
The bark of distant dogs — a colt's shrill neigh
Or bellowing of bulls, pawing the dirt
Into the faces of their fellow prisoners,
The patient sheep. But when deep silence
Has attuned our ears to finer things, we hear
The little voices of the leaves and grass;
Katydids and locusts, crickets and grasshoppers
And the rumble of the burglar bumble-bee, plush-coated,
Searching blackberry blossoms and wild asters.
So when you rest upon the dusty way of life
Your summer peace will be disturbed by bark of Presidents,
The grunt of politicians and the bellowing
Of Congressmen who violently paw the dust into the eyes
Of sheep locked in a pasture long gone dry.
But sure as frost will follow, six weeks from
The katydid's shrill monody, you presently will hear
That great, stupendous, awful word — " A Statesman. "
Then lay your ear close to the grass and as
You heard the cricket's violin beneath
The bark of dogs and bellowing of bulls,
You certainly will hear beneath the elocution,
A fine, thin, mocking, ribald laughter.
The Devil and his merry imps waking
Hell's roof and rafters with their dearest jest,
A Statesman — The State's man —
Never the People's man — The man who hatches war.
Young men — young women — there could be no war
If you would think — It is great toil to think.
It makes the tired soul sweat.
The sweat of the soul is salt.
It keeps life sweet.
Statesmen delight to drug you with that
Anodyne which leads you drowsily to Lethe.
" The People rule " — The People never ruled.
What is to rule? To take by force — to break
By force a people to a Master's will.
To cheat the people with a cheating Law —
That is to rule — the people never ruled —
And yet for every flock there must be leaders.
Nature abhors monotony,
Continually she labors in the alcoves of
Her mystery for the eternal different
And the always new;
She holds two master keys, divine —
Birth — and Death.
One hangs continually fresh garlands;
The other sweeps the withered out.
In those cathedrals of the Titans, where the sun
Himself creeps secretly to worship, one sequoia giant
Pillars up the sky beyond the rest, and yet he holds
No privilege by Law of sun or rain or air;
The great field equal and the struggle free.

When steadily the wedge of honker-geese
Splits the night sky from south to north,
A captain leads — but not for self — and when
Like Jove — he wearies of his combat with the air
And falls into the general line — another
Takes his place with the same urge —
The equal benefit of all.
A bison herd has leaders —
Bulls, with mighty shoulder-humps, and massive heads
And patriarchal beards — foretops that screen
The fiery eyes, forever watchful.
When wide-spread, scarlet nostrils snuff the taint
Of wolf or man upon the wind, then massive heads
Are lowered and the up-curved horns of ebony
Front every danger; guardians of cows and calves.
These have no privileged pastures, no monopoly of waterfalls
And foamy streams and do not send young bulls
To fight while they, with silk-robed cows,
Wallow voluptuous in the cool, soft mud.
I have known peoples without " State " or " Statesmen " ;
And without gallows, jails, palaces, police or slums;
No poverty nor crime — none dreamed a man,
Above the cunning, grey coyote-thief,
Could have a wish to steal the common heritage
And cheat his brother into slavery,
Minting the weary, drudging life to coin
And to crime.
These were a people nursed at Freedom's breast so that
They could not guess at slavery but watched the hawk
Wheel in the air — and gazed into the face
Of every man in proud equality, as eagles stare
Against the sun from mountain crags.
The food of life, a general gift to all
From the great mother, partitioned by the chief;
He equal with each child — and fronting death
To keep the birthright of the child,
Not governor by force — but by the custom of
The tribe giving counsel and decision in a father's tone.
No forced obedience, but the disobedient was
An outlaw from the tribe — and such there never were.
Each owned what he himself had made — or she had made —
Blanket or bag, bow, basket, spear or tepee or canoe.
A commonwealth — Equality the guide and men and women free.
What need of jails — police or penitentiaries?
A simple people, whose smoked tepee tops scarce thrust
Above the willows, where the rippling little river ran.
No sky-assailing towers — no railroads, banks, no radios,
Except the blackbird's whistle and the crane's high call;
In every thought and act all free; from basket cradle
Swinging on a willow bough or branch of juniper
To the unmarked grave where the wind played with
The grass and Nature stooped a moment but
Refused to mourn.
The pine trees were their brothers and the cuckoo-owls
Their cousins; clouds their messengers. The winds
Ran from afar to bring them news. The rivers
Spoke to them in that blurred tongue of unseen spirits
And the hidden dead. The lava cliffs unrolled
To them pictures of the great travail, before
Man was — before the rivers were or any sea;
When all the world was flame and mountains blazed
As torches and the rivers were of fire.
Freely they gave and freely took without humility,
And, unafraid, they wrapped their souls about them
And lay down upon the mother-breast, so close,
They heard the beating of the cosmic heart:
Knowing that they were kin to all — and all
Were kin to them — and life — not property,
The destiny of Man.
Their houses, flitting as dry leaves in Autumn wind
Were frail to let the stars come in: and to them came
Freedom, Equality and Justice; to lie upon the black bear-robes
Spread soft before the central fire, whose thin
Blue smoke went straight up to the gods.
A happy people. I have heard their songs and flutes —
Their chants and drums — their stories, laughter and
Their weeping — a happy people — accepting the great mystery
Without rebellion, as the juniper of many winters accepts it
And the larkspur of one melting spring accepts it;
As the beautiful doe with spotted fawn accepts it
And the beaver, which is cunning to dam up the rivers
In the meadows where tall, shivering aspen grow.
Very clear are the round, brown eyes
Of the beaver — full of wisdom.
A happy people, knowing a loving mother
Has provided more than enough for her children.
Glad are the days when the sun returns
Into the north, bringing a promise of plenty;
When salmon begin to leap in the rivers
And wickiups of willow are hastily built
Along the bank where the rapids toss
And like silver arrows the salmon desperately dart
Toward clear fountains and gravelly beds
Where they were born. All build a wing dam
To guide the shining ones into a narrow channel,
To meet, as all must meet, their fate,
Entangling nets and piercing spears.
Then is the red flesh split and spread on drying racks;
Sheets of flame when the sun shines through.
Bright are the evening fires that toast the salmon;
And sweet the half burnt head — Winter forgotten.
Now the children bathe in the river and run on the shore,
Shooting with arrows. Bear comes down to the fishing.
At the end of the running the chief divides the catch
With just equality. Was it not all the gift of the mother?
Did not all build the dam? Or when the Enormous Sea
Offers Earth's children a gift and sends
Through its bays a torrent of herring,
Eager to spawn on the sea weed —
Bark huts are built near the shingle and cedar boughs
Anchored in shallows until well loaded
With pearly eggs, heavily they are lifted,
Masses of opalescent spoil, dripping from the sea.
Feasts of salt-sea morsels; abundant harvest,
Smoked and dried and packed in parflêche bags
For the lean and hungry days when the sun refuses his love.
Now trout vault for the gauzy wings above
Dark quiet pools and slip into the willow traps.
Green things grow and juicy — young tender nettles,
Dock just sprouting,
Thistle shoots, mustard, wild onion, Indian lettuce.
The golden chariot rolls its pageant;
Wild carrots, couse and the sweet camas bulbs
Whose pure cerulean lilies pave with sky the meadows.
Fruits and seeds and meat, blackberries, strawberries,
Huckleberries, loved by foxes and by bears;
Wild cherries and wild plums; amethysts from desert hills.
Wokus — the rich seeds of the lotus lily
Of Klamath marshes and the high lagoons.
Ducks and geese which followed the sun to the south,
Have come to these protecting swamps and raised their broods.
And long-shanked cranes.
Porcupines are fat; grouse have ceased from drumming,
And lead their busy speckled young.
Sharp-eyed boys with an unerring throw
Stone fool-hens from the tufted pines;
Abundance everywhere, even to bursting.
And as the grudging One steals near,
Wider and wider the mother spreads her arms.
The lordly ones come lower in the hills;
Haughty elk and dainty stepping deer,
And antelope fleet over the desert.
Now is much feasting — festal time of the whole year.
Continually the hunters come, bearing great burdens,
Fat carcasses swinging on poles between two carriers.
Joints hiss upon the coals, and bubble, pots,
Boiling the heads and shanks; cutlets, stuck
Before the blaze on willow wands, drip fatty juice.
The sticky toadstools sought beneath the pines
By greedy elk and bear, toast succulently, with
Good smell of roasted nuts.
The winter store of meat is jerked and packed,
As hard and black as ebony, and the grave chief,
With the solemnity befitting one who deals with life
And justice, makes apportionment. Always the hide
To him who struck the quarry first.
But presently the mountains lock their doors —
Let fall the barriers and silence comes
As comes the snow. No thing stirs.
Even rabbits have found wings and the small
Grey crow comes closer, begging its share.
And so the long dark nights, the short dark days,
Winter — so slow the melting days which break
The chains — the Sun delays his love.
Long — long — too long the Mother lies
Locked in hard icy arms — past hope, too long.
The children hunger and the men grow lean.
Gone is the meat and small the store of roots
And it is good to chew the inner bark
Of the black pine to ease sharp hunger.
The chief sends out the hunters — in three bands —
To dare the mountains and meet Death
Along those snowy parapets where elk and deer
Have made their yards — and stand against
The fiercest fear of all, the grey wolf pack.
Each hunter has a double handful of dried roots —
No more — the rest is fate.
Three days — and nothing heard — and four — and five.
Still nothing — Starvation sits beside the fire.
Then through the evening dusk, a far, faint call
That tells the hunters have returned, and bringing game.
Five bucks — three does — a cougar and an elk
He had pulled down — Where are the others?
These thought that they would be the last, but they are first.
The chief allots, and the tired hunters
Who have eaten liver, heart, kidneys and marrow-gut,
Lie by the fire, their task well done.
Morsels are snatched, burning the lips,
And once again the belly-skin is stretched.
The wrinkled, grey shaman, by children feared,
And feared by squaws and men, tightens his drum
And chants reproaches to the angry sun — and prayer.
The moon walks through the pine tops and the children hear
How came the sun and moon and stars and how
The Indians first got fire.
A simple people with no gallows and no jails.