The Natchez Trace

For Miss Eudora Welty

Was there ever road to travel-

Shank's-mare, cart, or Plymouth-free of time,

That left no brass there, or

No banditry? Coming and going murdered more

Than ever Big and Little Harp, or Murrell

Did. Riverman, gar-dark beneath the Pearl,

You lie with a dappled cramp,

Eviscerated, stuffed with rock; and who can tell,

So weighted down with deed you are,

What bait you are for what great suckered fish!

Was your destination Nashville,

Too? You, preacher, circuiting with bible

And pure corn, was Hell or Heaven

The nag you rode upon,

Before the derringer decided for you God was cash?

It thieves us from our speed to trace it. There,

The earth crumbles, the sumac's spindles

Clack upon the loom of air. There, the bones

Come forth, layer upon layer,

Charmed and quick with prophesy. No soothsayer,

Wampumed, streaked with snake-bird's slough,

Can barter us what we ask; nor cast ribs to puff

Our diaphragms. It dooms us, once we've known

The tupelo is doomed. It compels

Us, having read the Ofahoma were

A tribe of no importance, to pass on. Yet, must

A trace survive, a trace!

South and west were main, yet south-southwest

Plowed rut as deep, or deeper; so to write

Of it, explore, downs tangent to its cloven root,

Verduring in banks of residue. All lost,

The sound and hurry, the smooth macadams to the norther

Home, What widdershins of tread

Will now uncache the haunted gold, the buried heart,

From secret mould? We'll never get

To Nashville, nor to any goal, jogtrot

Or gallop, without knowing this. But, slowed,

Untreasuring will print our passage-point to that which pride

Set out to travel and which hunger swerved.

The cypress died when slime and backwash dried;

And measured out our length, as once our height. How far

From home our luggage takes us! But, farther, still,

Our hanker; till a trail's eroded

Down how far we've come. Rock in belly, bullet in gut,

Axe in skull, quelling passion in whatever name,

Kill pain; but ache out-aches the crime,

The gun. Somewhere along the trace, our spill

Of blood will tell the others who and what we were.