Madstone

When he had killed a white-tailed deer,

A Blackfeet hunter would look first

In its belly, and once in forty winters

One of forty hunters might find

A madstone there the size of a loon's egg,

Dark mother-of-pearl, gleaming.

That hunter would wear it on his breast

At the heart of his breath, and after many days

He would know how to disappear in a thicket

Of sapling birch without touching the ground,

How to stand still

Among the white-flecked gray black dappling

Of alder bark and not be there,

Would know how to lie down perfectly

Around himself in a hollow of dry grass

And be no more than the light

Of the sun or moon falling through broken stems.

He would know how to stand close to his enemy,

There, meeting those angry eyes

Exactly at that moment, and not feel anger,

Feel nothing, be completely gone

In an instant, out of sight, out of this day's death,

Not through his fear but because he could not

remember

How to be foolish.

He would no longer be a hunter but would wander

Carefully in the woods, near the edges of fields

At dawn and dusk, and walk in shallow streams

By half light. Whatever he ate-

Shoots and berries, the youngest leaves - would turn

And fall within him like his own weather

And gather, layer by thin layer, slowly