Cornhuskers | Page 8

eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not understand.
A man is crossing a big prairie, says the poem, and nothing happens--and he goes on and on--and it's all lonesome and empty and nobody home.
And he goes on and on--and nothing happens--and he comes on a horse's skull, dry bones of a dead horse-- and you know more than ever it's all lonesome and empty and nobody home.
And the man raises a horn to his lips and blows--he fixes a proud neck and forehead toward the empty sky and the empty land--and blows one last wondercry.
And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks off its results willy-nilly and inevitable as the snick of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimeter projectile,
I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts of Manitoba and Minnesota--in the sled derby run from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.
He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg-- the lead dog is eaten by four team mates--and the man goes on and on--running while the other racers ride--running while the other racers sleep--
Lost in a blizzard twenty-four hours, repeating a circle of travel hour after hour--fighting the dogs who dig holes in the snow and whimper for sleep-- pushing on--running and walking five hundred miles to the end of the race--almost a winner---one toe frozen, feet blistered and frost-bitten.
And I know why a thousand young men of the Northwest meet him in the finishing miles and yell cheers --I know why judges of the race call him a winner and give him a special prize even though he is a loser.
I know he kept under his shirt and around his thudding heart amid the blizzards of five hundred miles that one last wonder-cry of Childe Roland---and I told the six-year-old girl all about it.
And while the January wind was ripping at the shingles and whistling a wolf song under the caves, her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not understand.
WILDERNESS
THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood--I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers... I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun--I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ...before land was... before the water went down... before Noah... before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the
hawk-eyed hankering men... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and kill ...ready to sing and give milk... waiting--I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes--And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart--and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where--For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
PERSONS HALF KNOWN
CHICAGO POET
I SALUTED a nobody.?I saw him in a looking-glass.?He smiled--so did I.?He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning--so did I.?Everything I did he did.?I said, "Hello, I know you."?And I was a liar to say so.
Ah, this. looking-glass man!?Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor,?Soldier, dusty drinker of dust--?Ah! he will go with me?Down the dark stairway?When nobody else is looking,?When everybody else is gone.
He locks his elbow in mine,?I lose all--but not him.
FIRE-LOGS
NANCY