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