By Bradley McIlwain
(for R.D.)
river rushes north
along aged Indian
trails cupping hands
with scout guides
and ghosts of foreign
navigators once lost
among mosquito marsh
and dense brush, asking
sustenance from
unforgiving earth
plucking berries
you picked in autumn
before she turned
gold to silver and
mud brown—the
end of hunting
and the creation of
renewed paths, when
beauty paved the road to
harshness, we gathered
dancing in deer skins, to
the sacred drum, hoping
to find the heartbeat that
remained
(Originally published in Wilderness Interface Zone.)
