Sierra Kid

 "I've been where it hurts.
" the Kid 

He becomes Sierra Kid

 I passed Slimgullion, Morgan Mine, 
 Camp Seco, and the rotting Lode.
 
 Dark walls of sugar pine --, 
 And where I left the road 

 I left myself behind; 
 Talked to no one, thought 
 Of nothing.
 When my luck ran out 
 Lived on berries, nuts, bleached grass.
 
 Driven by the wind 
 Through great Sonora pass, 

 I found an Indian's teeth; 
 Turned and climbed again 
 Without direction, compass, path, 
 Without a way of coming down, 
 Until I stopped somewhere 
 And gave the place a name.
 

 I called the forests mine; 
 Whatever I could hear 
 I took to be a voice: a man 
 Was something I would never hear.


He faces his second winter in the Sierra

 A hard brown bug, maybe a beetle, 
 Packing a ball of sparrow shit -- 
 What shall I call it? 
 Shit beetle? Why's it pushing here 
 At this great height in the thin air 
 With its ridiculous waddle 

 Up the hard side of Hard Luck Hill? 
 And the furred thing that frightened me -- 
 Bobcat, coyote, wild dog -- 
 Flat eyes in winter bush, stiff tail 
 Holding his ground, a rotted log.
 
 Grass snakes that wouldn't die, 

 And night hawks hanging on the rim 
 Of what was mine.
 I know them now; 
 They have absorbed a mind 
 Which must endure the freezing snow 
 They endure and, freezing, find 
 A clear sustaining stream.


He learns to lose

 She was afraid 
 Of everything, 
 The little Digger girl.
 
 Pah Utes had killed 
 Her older brother 
 Who may have been her lover 
 The way she cried 
 Over his ring -- 

 The heavy brass 
 On the heavy hand.
 
 She carried it for weeks 
 Clenched in her fist 
 As if it might 
 Keep out the loneliness 
 Or the plain fact 
 That he was gone.
 

 When the first snows 
 Began to fall 
 She stopped her crying, picked 
 Berries, sweet grass, 
 Mended her clothes 
 And sewed a patchwork shawl.
 
 We slept together 
 But did not speak.
 

 It may have been 
 The Pah Utes took 
 Her off, perhaps her kin.
 
 I came back 
 To find her gone 
 With half the winter left 
 To face alone -- 
 The slow grey dark 

 Moving along 
 The dark tipped grass 
 Between the numbed pines.
 
 Night after night 
 For four long months 
 My face to her dark face 
 We two had lain 
 Till the first light.


Civilization comes to Sierra Kid

 They levelled Tater Hill 
 And I was sick.
 
 First sun, and the chain saws 
 Coming on; blue haze, 
 Dull blue exhaust 
 Rising, dust rising, and the smell.
 

 Moving from their thatched huts 
 The crazed wood rats 
 By the thousand; grouse, spotted quail 
 Abandoning the hills 
 For the sparse trail 
 On which, exposed, I also packed.
 

 Six weeks.
 I went back down 
 Through my own woods 
 Afraid of what I knew they'd done.
 
 There, there, an A&P, 
 And not a tree 
 For Miles, and mammoth hills of goods.
 

 Fat men in uniforms, 
 Young men in aprons 
 With one face shouting, "He is mad!" 
 I answered: "I am Lincoln, 
 Aaron Burr, 
 The aging son of Appleseed.
 

 "I am American 
 And I am cold.
" 
 But not a one would hear me out.
 
 Oh God, what have I seen 
 That was not sold! 
 They shot an old man in the gut.


Mad, dying, Sierra Kid enters the capital

 What have I changed? 
 I unwound burdocks from my hair 
 And scalded stains 
 Of the black grape 
 And hid beneath long underwear 
 The yellowed tape.
 

 Who will they find 
 In the dark woods of the dark mind 
 Now I have gone 
 Into the world? 
 Across the blazing civic lawn 
 A shadow's hurled 

 And I must follow.
 
 Something slides beneath my vest 
 Like melted tallow, 
 Thick but thin, 
 Burning where it comes to rest 
 On what was skin.
 

 Who will they find? 
 A man with no eyes in his head? 
 Or just a mind 
 Calm and alone? 
 Or just a mouth, silent, dead, 
 The lips half gone? 

 Will they presume 
 That someone once was half alive 
 And that the air 
 Was massive where 
 The sickening pyracanthus thrive 
 Staining his tomb? 

 I came to touch 
 The great heart of a dying state.
 
 Here is the wound! 
 It makes no sound.
 
 All that we learn we learn too late, 
 And it's not much.

Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem |

Poems are below...