Once a path down from
long mountains, cold black rivers
Down from granite ribs and
thin-soiled beds scoured by snow
and migrations of ice and elk
A route for exchange of flint and
shell and fur
Then the westward roll
of emigrants struck the trail north
settling alongside in foggy valleys
observed from dim places
Those seeking gold turned south
and shunned Oregon, took horse and wagon
into the great valley
and met crazed men fleeing ships
abandoned in the mud of Yerba Buena
The sickness swept valley and hill
and ran gurgling in dark ravines
Dug and gouged, ripped open
mountain guts, seams where once
the planet was stitched together
spilled out its offal on the ground
trickling poison into groaning rivers
And the Dawn People watched and
shook their heads and some
fell back to the mountains
there to fade
while others fell into the hands
of cold-eyed men
And those who were seized by this
fever bent muscle and spine under
the iron wheel, chewed ore to
golden splinters
No one remembered his own name
or the names of his people
or the place from which his people came
All bound together in forgetting tribe
All forged together in digging nation
poured in from every land, enslaved and enslaving
severed tree and root, broken hills, shattered peaks
trampling the old route once marked
only by the tread of silent feet
rutting the road that runs from north to south
burrowing that track deep in the soil
Broken gash full of mud and stones and bones and teeth
This artery drew soil and spewed blood
Those in its path were subdued and those who
followed the rivers to the valley grew rich
or they worked for those who grew rich
Farms sprang up like white frost in the morning
Carved the yielding belly of earth
which gave endlessly of itself
Then the towns came, leaping from the minds
of men who disliked the night and the twilight
and the rustling of claw and wing and bare foot
under trees beyond the edge of sight
And the towns grew brighter
and sucked from rushing rivers
and the waters were pent up
Canyon and meadow drowned
Trees girdled, reached up with bare black fingers
and the night sky closed its stars
Out beyond the glare of things
Some people watched
The last of the First People
They stood a while
speaking quietly among themselves
One of them drew in the rich brown dirt
with a piece of stick
Then with one accord they stood
They picked up a few things
They turned without gesture
and walked out of the world