SARGASSO


 2



 Last of Her Race

A walk in the morning:
Sun burning off the early mist,
River-bank ablaze with Lady Slippers.
Old hut in a green clearing:
No sign of fire-side or children.
Friends who know the forest:
"Come and see this wonder,
Maybe she's a hundred years.
Talk to her, see if you can get her story."
Room is misty with strong tobacco smoke,
Old woman in a corner croons and drools,
Lifts up her terrible blue-stone eyes.

Miaha, "last of her race,"
Frail, desolate, decayed,
Greets no one in the mornings,
Relates no heroic deeds to anyone:
Children, children's children, not there anymore
All gone, all gone.
She wears one green stone of Amazon,
Amulet against the snake-bite threat,
The gaze of Spirits that accuse.
A trembling voice saying nothing:
Deer have grazed for long
Over the rain-worn tribal mounds.
Her cloudy eyes skim past
Missing mine by centuries
Seeking something deep, eternal, lost.

I am shy, I am ashamed,
Edge out into the sunlight
Saying nothing to the picnicers,
Breathe in the green deep forest air.
Old toothless woman comes and goes
In this forgotten place smelling of orchids:
Past and gone, the wind whispers,
Past and gone, the forest hardly stirs.