INCOMERS
I
There is nothing here,
no translation of one world to another.
Briars entangle the fallen stones
of the dry wall.
Wires trail from a tarred pole
and hang mutely through trees;
on stormy nights the wind
hums through them
but I cannot listen.
I thought I could supply the lack
but the depth of leaves is gone
and the silence is an ache in my ears
broken only by the buzzard's cry
and by words I never came to understand
II
No, that's not how it is!
They challenged the unknown presence:
In the long nights I shaped
the place in my mind.
I was not alone. Saxons
of the last frontier, we spoke
no redskin. Ignoring the example
of renegades with squaws we
named anew the sacred sites
and claimed them for own own.
This is how the West was won.