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Now reading
Uncertain Clues
FOUR POEMS
UNCERTAIN CLUES
Whelmed in the crazy mire
we face a leaner age;
in reveille of violent tones
despair dictates the page.
To trace our trails we read
the native script again:
the subtleties of calm Thoreau
and ironies of sad Mark Twain.
No phrases neatly turned
conceal the tears and grind;
Parkman's words were unadorned
and Whitman's undefined.
No politician's oath
submits a patriot ruse:
they pledged their spirit's troth
in vague, uncertain clues.
No graphs inked on the page
or calls to do and dare
but half-erased by age
uncertain clues are there.
Missouri's dark glimmer
done by Currier and Ives;
an old river steamer:
ponies and Bowie knives.
The husbandman walking
to his barbed wire lines,
a stealthy hunter stalking
through stiffly frosted pines.
The hostile wind: the plain,
the axe, the scythe, the log,
the sunset's golden stain
on nature's catalogue.
SHUT THE DOOR