Jim Bridger’s Lament

I can see it all very clearly:

       I am on my knees
       in a field of grain.
       I think it is wheat.
       My mount grazes nearby,
       browsing on stubble,
       trailing his reins
       as I shamble.

       The morning light is brilliant.
       But for all the good
       the sun does me,
       might as well be midnight.
       I reach out to the stalks,
       moving hand over hand
       up to the beards.

       Yes, it is wheat.
       At least that’s what
       my sense of touch is telling
       my mind’s eye.
       I drop my hands to my side,
       bow my head,
       and weep.

Yes, I see this future all too clearly,
as clearly as I now see columns of smoke
rising from Arapaho cookfires thirty miles hence.
It’s all plain to those who would but see.

But I am not looking for smoke;
I am looking for what’s there,
and to read it right
whatever it be.

When I say “columns of smoke,” sir,
what do you envision?
Signal fires on a bluff?
Bonfires at a war council?
Campfires of raiding braves?

Imagine if you will
an Arapaho village
at peaceful dawn
not suspecting a cavalry column
advancing a mountain range away.
Inside fifty or more lodges
the night’s fires smolder
still hot enough to heat stones
for the morning’s water.
The clean smoke filters
into the heavy morning air.
The wind coming upriver
pushes these low-hanging threads
through a tapestry of trees.

Fifty lodges full of Arapaho
do not pitch tipi on the open plain
or build bonfires for breakfast.
They let the sun warm their skin
on its own time.
So I look beyond the plain
of the Peneu meander,
past Little Goose and Big Goose.
Every sign points to Indians
somewhere along the Tongue,
and only so many river bends
provide shelter, fuel, and pasture
for fifty Arapaho lodges.
I scan the valley of the Tongue
and due north filtered smoke
hangs in that thirty-mile wood
and tells me all I need to know.

I read what is
and what lies behind.

“Do you see those columns of smoke yonder?”
I ask you. And before even looking
you conjure columns in your mind,
fancy raiding parties and signal fires,
then search for what you expect to see
with your field glasses,
your paper collar,
and epaulets.

And so you see nothing.

By all means
tell the general I’ve lost my mind.
But I see with great clarity
what two or three days hold,
after Pawnee scouts are dispatched
against your wisdom
and in favor of mine,
after a forced march,
after a dawn raid.

Then you will indeed see fifty lodges
and fifty filtered columns of smoke,
two hundred women and children,
a handful of old warriors.
And all their voices stilled
by your command.

And I see so much more.
Sign spells out quite well
what the future holds.
The end of a mountain life.
The very end of the plains:

What it means to win,
and to lose,
a future without sight,
a staggering last stand
in a field of wheat
on my knees,
reins loosed,
head bowed,
wet eye offered
for wet eye
upon wet eye.

And I not the only one blind.