On
The Bend Of The Little Wind:Poetry of Wyoming
BY
Joe Greig
Table of Contents:
On
The Bend of The Little Wind
This is the land from which I
come
Before Rural Electrification
Goodbye Indian Grove
Time For Getting Winter's Wood
High Country Thaw
Wind River Peaks
Indian Grave
Vision
Sanchez
Booge
Trying To Go Home
The Sun Dance
Reservation Obituary
Red Desert
Crazy Horse
The Cleansing
Green Mountain Theophany
Let Me Blow Away
On The Bend of The Little Wind
On
the bend of the Little Wind
While grown men haggled over
Market
price for hides and furs
My eyes met your
Dark Arapahoes'
Long hair hanging,
Barefoot.
You drifted off to stand
Beside the cabin wall
Where hides nailed drying
Framed your nomadic past,
A portrait hung reminisced
In photographs
Crumbled into dust.
This
is the land from which I come.
Out of these hills I came
emerging from my mother's womb,
a land of high plains,
cedar and sage.
The shadows of mountains
blanket my bed;
I pull them over me.
They cover my shadow;
I am enclosed in the Eternal.
In the morning, the sun points me to the high peaks;
there I seek wisdom.
This is how it is, how wisdom is learned;
pointed west to the mountains,
east to the plains,
always a shadow.
Every mountain slopes to the plains,
the plains rise to the mountains.
I rise and fall, fall and rise;
flow with the rivers,
ascend in the mist;
return again and again to the land
from which I come.
Before
rural electrification
In the old log house,
Abandoned now like a worn-out boot,
Coal oil lamps
At night
And early morning hours
Bathed our faces in
Pale yellow light.
We played outside by moonlight,
Our laughter answered by the coyotes
In the hills.
But when,
The lamp turned down,
Or flame put out,
The night sky
Closed us in,
Early
to our beds,
We talked across a darkened room
Until we fell asleep,
Or cold drafts
Drove
our heads
Beneath warm quilts.
Grey
sage and sky Wyoming blue,
The singing wind allures
The homing heart;
We gather up his memories and go
To Indian Grove.
Rising high, the broad backed Beaver Divide
Breaks for desert wanderers
Making their ascent from willow shade
To travel on to Sweetwater.
Clear and cold the water runs at Indian Grove;
He fills his cup and drinks the spring's
Pure offering.
His thoughts turn back some fiftv years or more,
Lamenting that there were no choke cherries
Growing along the creek bank as before.
Farther down the stream
He shows me ruins of the lambing sheds,
The cook house fallen 'round a
Cast iron stove,
A dipping trench concealed by brushy
Overgrowth,
The spot he parked the wagon
Fit between the trail and creek.
He speaks of Gillis, Harry, Henry Brown,
Old Bill, Young Bill, Donald, John,
The Figure Eight, and Yellowstone;
And lonely men with severed roots,
Whose memory dies with memories dead,
Like Hector.
He ranges farther out to Muskrat and to Antelope,
Recalls a team of horses dead for fifty years;
Their names still lingering in his memory.
Monty, Clyde,
He says, as if they 're hitched and ready
For his bidding.
He wants to wander further in this waste,
Run out of gas, he doesn't seem to care;
But I say, no, we have to go, Mom will worry.
He walks a little way from where the truck is parked
And says he wants to say goodbye to Indian Grove
For the last time.
He contemplates the skyline's landmark rise.
I snapped his picture looking back
At his beginnings in this wild land.
He started dying then in that same surge of life
That brought him here,
And hid from me the meaning of his words.
I yet recall them for my melancholy soul.
Time For Getting Winter's Wood
It was the time
For getting winter's wood;
We made our way
up a twisting mountain road
to timber. I was just a boy,
too young to work.
Sister went to look for birds andflowers.
I watched while Dad and Mom
pushed down dead aspen,
cut the logs to length,
and stacked them on the truck.
I didn't realize then
the strength of self suffciency,
or how our lives were joined and shaped
by times that moved with seasonal flow:
taking herds of sheep to mountain pasture
after grass had grown, sowing time and harvest,
a time for getting winter's wood,
a time for storing ice for summer's heat.
We compromised the calendar and clock;
Nature 's rhythms
gave our dance of ltfe a different beat.
But calendar and clock taught us how to march.
We followed their commands.
Nature had a muffled beat.
Now we keep appointments
written in a little book
that tells us where and when to go,
and what to do;
We check our watch
to be on time.
Except when natural rhythms force themselves
to break the temporal paradigms,
they rule our lives,
and there 's no time
for getting winter's wood.
Springtime
In the high country,
The power of the thaw,
No one has come here
This year yet.
Horse tracks
From last fall's
hunts,
Fast frozen,
Look almost
fresh
Until they disappear
Under snow drifts
Draped across
the trail.
Here and there
On slopes bereft
of trees
A crocus pokes its head
Above the margin
Of the snow,
Bejeweled with
diamond drops.
Thundering water falls
Cascade down
Rock strewn beds,
Sweeping fallen spruce
Like arrows flying
Down stream.
These cataracts
Dry up
Early summer
Leaving only
gorges
Cut in mountain sides
Quickly trying
to hide
The scars
With sparse green grass.
Here I'll camp
Listening to
the roar
That lulls me into sleep
And bids me come flow with it
When I dream.
Wind River Peaks
Storm
clouds form on high Wind River peaks
Most every afternoon come August.
They gather with the swirling wind
Until full of power and rain they rush
Headlong down the mountain.
They come a herd of bison
Stampeded by the thunder beings;
Dust clouds rise and sweep across the sage,
And tumble weeds are poundedfrom their rooting.
The rock-churned water of Bull Lake Creek
Meets and surges with the torrent of the spirit world;
Wind whips down between the canyon walls
Until
The driving rain
Sideways
Merges with the frothy flow.
And when the herd
has passed,
And faint the herd bull's bellowings,
The sun appears and once again returns the world
To those who have no dreams.
Bob cat tracks
Pressed in freshly fallen snow,
We followed as
we always did,
Up along a cedar ridge
Then jumped out
of our view,
Above a sand stone ledge.
A fallen cedar tree
We laid against its face,
And climbed;
A cave's mouth beckoned us to enter
To a burial.
Skulls and femurs,
Scattered beads,
And bits of ancient things
That long in perishing
Awakened our
imaginations
To a world we both had missed
By birth's late coming.
Sand and beads fell sifting
Through ourfingers.
Whose were these bones,
These trinkets death surviving;
What tribe passed here
To know this hidden place?
We stayed and mused,
Calling up sights
and sounds
Of buffalo thundering on the flats
Above the rim;
Warriors, taking up the trail
Of stolen horses.
Returning to that world's replacement,
We hiked back to the truck;
Glad to hear ignition, tires still inflated,
And turned it toward the road.
Last night as
I lay sleeping
In a vision of the night,
A hole appeared in heaven
In a swirl of cloud and light.
The clouds turned into rimrock;
Like a cirque
there formed a wall,
And my father rode upon it
On a bay horse dark and tall.
His arms were bared and muscled,
He was young and in his prime,
His words flowed down a wind stream
Transforming space and time.
He said, I've come for your mother,
It 's been years since I've been home;
Herding sheep up in the mountains,
I've been camped there all alone.
But I've cut logs for a cabin,
By a spring that won't go dry,
With a meadow and green pastures
Where we lie down when we die.
Some
day I'll come and get you,
I'll bring your sister there,
We '11 pick the mountain flowers,
And braid them in her hair.
I reached out in my slumber,
I wanted just to touch,
But a hand closed up the heavens,
When instead I tried to clutch.
I heard a voice like thunder,
There were hoof beats in the sky,
And I called out in the darkness,
But he gave me no reply.
Then I threw the covers from me,
In a daze sat on my bed,
Pondering what the vision meant,
And how long I had been dead.
Sanchez,
mounted,
saw us coming,
A fast ride for an old sheepherder,
made the wagon first
to meet us at the door--
all smiles.
Three weeks alone,
he was glad to see a human face.
We carried groceries from the truck,
but hid his Bull Durham underneath the seat.
Inside
is shirt
the boss concealed a fifth of Seagram 7.
Sanchez rummaged through the boxes,
a winter hungry squirrel
looking for a buried nut.
No
Whiskey!
Holding
in the pressure
to burst out,
we tried to keep our faces straight,
but puzzled looks suggested
that it might have fallen out.
Sanchez searched the truck
sniffed out the tobacco;
He thought he caught the scent of whiskey.
No Whiskey!
Enough
to hold a man made weak,
Albert held the bottle out.
Sanchez lit up like a lamp;
a wick turned high
above a reservoir
running low on oil.
This ranch hand strode into the room
At
the end of a long hard day,
Where we were waitin' supper
And a chance to draw our pay.
His hair was long and heavy;
Hadn 't seen a brush or comb
-at least for quite some time-
And he fixed his eyes right on me,
The kid from Winkleman Dome.
He asked me if I had the time
To cut his hair to size
So he could get his hat on
And not force shut his eyes
--from the top that is--
He thought that I could do the job;
He 'd seen my dad cut mine,
So I found some shears and a broken comb,
And put my talent on the line.
Commencing with his head's left side
From the bottom to the top,
It didn't take me long to see
My technique destined for a flop
--flop as in lopsided--
The ranch hands started laughin'
At the way I'd made him tilt,
And I muttered something 'bout his hair
And the way his head was built.
I started on the right side
To even up a bit
But finished cuttin' way too high,
So I had to make the left side fit.
When I got all through with the levelin' up
I'd really roached his mane,
Not a full-fledged Mohawk,
In fact he looked quite tame.
I was sorry for the awful job
When he looked at what I'd done,
But he thanked me with a friendly voice,
"The hayhands had some fun."
He wasn't going anywhere
Until the summer's end,
"Consider it just practice."
He wasn't easy to offend.
He pulled his hat down to his ears,
And gave the brim a spin,
Then threw it on the hat rack
Before we all dug in.
A lot of years have come and gone,
The mountain and the flat,
But I can't forget the kid who had
Me size his head to fit his hat.
A motel light
blinks off and on,
Intermittent assurance
That I can feel at home,
At least until my money 's gone.
I drive north,
Out beyond the Fort,
To the flats above Sage Crik
Where I'm
haunted by shades
Of long ago,
And I feel a bit homesick.
The
old house looks almost the same to me,
But the gate is shut and locked
And I don't have a key.
The
road's been changed a bit,
But it still got me here,
Although the warning sign
To trespassers
Stirs my heart
With just a bit
Of momentary
fear.
I
'm still kind of territorial,
But it's been such a long, long time;
My claims been jumped,
And my line's been run
With a chain link fence that I can't climb.
But
I sit here waiting;
No one seems to be around,
So I open the door of my 4x4
And set my feet on sacred ground.
This soil contains my flesh and blood,
Even chips from my teeth lie somewhere,
And the leaves of the sage
May still retain
A strand of my long lost hair.
I reconstruct a former life;
A feeling of home brushes by:
A flicker, a glimpse of the way it was,
fades with the light from an evening sky.
I
get in my truck and head back to
A highway that once led home,
But I know in my heart
I can only try
To go back to Winkleman Dome.
Gebo took me
to the center of his world,
In the dimming light
The beat of drums
Throbbing through
The pulse of eagle bone whistles.
Gebo stood entranced,
While dancers shuffled to and fro,
Eyes fixed on the sacraments
Hanging
from the center pole:
Facing west the buffalo,
To the east the eagle
Spread its wings.
To me it was the 4th of July,
Indian dances on Main Street,
A carnival, just another wheel.
Then he told
me of the center pole,
The twelve good men,
The source of life,
The eagle's flight
Transcending
human limits.
The dance endured
The slaughter of the bufalo,
A people crucified by power.
Then
I saw the buffalo Christ
Gazing into darkness,
The eagle
flying toward
A rising sun.
They were dead before fifty.
Tumbleweeds
At the mercy of the wind,
Collecting in the fences
By the highways Where they died.
Sons of nomads
Lashed to bed frames;
Travois down long hallways,
Reaching out for freedom.
Names on tombstones,
Waiting to grow old.
A crimson cast infused the sky;
Far away a coyote s cry
The stillness pierced;
That ancient song
0'er desert sent,
As if of wanton crime repent
Expressing sorrow.
In that expanse of sand and brush
Where streams denied their course
To rush,
But merely ooze,
The song was heard,
And soon a score,
Their varied coral strain
Did soar
In morning's break.
Crazy Horse
Stands
One hundred
forty pounds
Of bronze
In my living room;
Shield at his back,
Lance planted forward,
Defiant --
The look he shot at Fetterman
And Custer.
The classical Indian face
The sculptor gave him
Shows him Indian through and through.
It's Crazy Horse alright,
No hint of compromise.
For years he's stood there,
Gazing at the paintings
On the walls:
Lodges on the Powder,
Ikce wicasa Buffalo, Ravens,
Wolves.
Visionary eyes
Pierce the canvas,
Through the walls,
Out onto the open plains;
Before the wasicun,
Before Fort Robinson,
Before betrayal.
Those envious of freedom
Searched for his soul
With a bayonet,
Escaped that night
Behind a camouflage
Of blood.
His father kept the watch
Blinded by his tears;
His mother mourned
The darkness of the dawn.
Wasicun heard their death song;
Moved to pity those too old to hope.
A fading shadow
With the sun near set;
Despair,
Hate, and wait,
Forgive, and die again--
Or Crazy Horse.
When the cleansing comes,
When the rivers overflow their banks
To sweep away what needs sweeping,
To cut new banks and channels
In the heart of settlement;
When the glaciers come
To cut the ground beneath foundations,
Grinding into flour
Asphalt paving over blossomed fields,
Pushing out and up and down
To purge indecency,
Piling high moraines of splintered condos,
Geordach, Risingol--
When the fire comes consuming,
Licking into wounds the oiled flesh,
Up inflames the human scat
Along the Snake, the Hobak,
And the Yellowstone--
Where the flies swarm
Maggots hatch.
The bird are waiting.
Jackson Hole!
When that pot boils
The scum will rise;
The wind will skim it off.
God once made a garden;
Two people
Overstepped their bounds,
So he drove them out,
And took the garden from the earth--
I've heard told.
The truth of archetypes--
Jackson Hole,
The Snake and Yellowstone
I feel the straining in the earth;
The Grand Teton
Pointing to the sky.
Beside our sagging tent
We sat
Still wet from thunderstorms
Swept down Green Mountain's
Timbered sides
By trickster winds,
Whose fury tore the tent stakes
From the ground
Collapsing flapping canvas,
Ropes, and poles
Across our beds,
And sent us scrambling
In the dead of night
To pitch it once again
From sightless memory.
We watched an eastern sky
Like someone set the world ablaze,
But we had not yet seen the flames.
Then through the glowing clouds emerged
The sun,
Ascending by degrees its fiery magnitude.
We sat transjixed until
The seraphim burned up
Before the brightness of their god
And turned to ash heaps at his feet
Not a man made thing
Confronted our enchanted gaze.
If God in human flesh had passed us by
We barely would have said, hello.
The drying summer sun soon brought us
To the task of packing up,
And then by riding near due north
Between the mountains to our right
And on our left the loft of Fisher Butte,
We met the highway and a few brave hearts
Brought by the peace to settle there.
But Jeffery City, still a nightmare
In some urban planner's insane mind
Had not disgraced the prairie yet
Like litter left along the road.
What I recall is still the absoluteness
Of that place,
And we two striving there
Like sinners on the day of judgment,
Trying to pitch a tent blown down
By forces in the dark of night,
That we both failed to see
Were but the righteous mask of God.
Let me blow away with dust
In rising swirls
Atop the summer wind,
And drift with snow
Across the prairie's
winter floor;
Let me fall with rain in spring
To green the high plain's brittle grass;
And when Wind River's cache of ice
Is broken up
By springtime's warming sun,
Let me brush its crystal banks,
And whisper softly as I pass.
Let me walk a stream of time
Bent back upon its flow,
Where memories turn to flesh
And death retreats behind a closing door,
Where voices call me to a rendezvous,
Returning from that farther shore.
Let imagination lose itself beyond the
known,
Fly with the wildness of my mind;
On mountains, in ravines
Where ravens beat their wings,
Against the wind,
And bid me follow.
The cover and all illustrations in this book are by artist Lynn
Kepner and are copyrighted material used by permission. Lynn's American
Indian ancestry is in the Miami tribe. Her specialties are woodcuts,
etchings, and lithographs. The cover picture of Abraham's God, was inspired
by Lynn's reading of Soren Kierkegaard's interpretation of the story
of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in the book, Fear and Trembling.
The title of this book and
the first poem were inspired by an
experience the author had on the Little Wind River many years ago when
his father was a hide and fur buyer in Wyoming. However, the title appeared
in 1987 as the heading of a poem by Jean Mathisen in Cache, Poetry
of Wyoming. Graciously, Jean has not protested my use of the title
for this chapbook and the poem.
Rural Electrification: Rural
electrification came late to some
Wyoming ranches. The Winchester Ranch on the Big Wind River is the reference
for the poem. It was not electrified until 1948.
Goodbye Indian Grove: Indian Grove is an ancient landmark below the rim of Beaver Divide, which forms a low lying contiguous part of the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains. It is accessed from Riverton, to the northwest, or Sweetwater to the south.
Trying To Go Home: Winkleman
Dome is situated at the
southeastern edge of the Big Horn Flats, north of Fort Washakie. It forms
the north end of Big Horn Ridge which runs north and
south from the head of Big Horn Draw to the Little Wind River
Crazy Horse: Ikce wicasa is Sioux for "Indian" or "the wild man."
Wasicun means "the white man."
Green Mountain Theophany: Green Mountain lies south of
Highway 287, and east of Crooks Gap and Jeffery City. Before the 60's this northern border of the Red Desert was a wild and "theophanic" place. The discovery of uranium and the creation of Jeffery City changed the character of this awesome place considerably. However, wild horses still run free here.
The author: Joe Greig was
born in Lander, Wyoming, and grew up
on the Big Horn Flats, north
of Fort Washakie. During his teen-age years, he worked on cattle and sheep
ranches along the Big Wind River. An avid hiker, he is familiar with both
the Wind River and Absaroka Ranges of the Rocky Mountains. He now resides
in Michigan where he teaches religion, philosophy, and classical Hebrew
at Andrews University, and raises a flock of Suffolk sheep. He is a member
of WYOPoets and Wyoming Writers.
Wind River Publications
Berrien Springs, Michigan
Second Printing, July, 1997
All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof must not be reproduced
in any
form without the written permission of the publisher.
Copies of On the Bend of the Little Wind may be obtained by sending $6.00
to
A. Josef Greig, Wind River Publications, 2054 E. Lemon Creek Rd. Berrien
Springs, Mi 49103