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From “The Box of God”
SHING-ÓB, companion of my old wild years | |
| In the land of K'tchée-gah-mée, my good right arm | |
| When we battled bloody-fisted in the storms | |
| And snows with rotting scurvy, with hunger raw | |
| And ravenous as the lusting tongues of wolves— | 5 |
| My Joe, no longer will the ghostly mountains | |
| Echo your red-lunged laughters in the night; | |
| The gone lone days when we communed with God | |
| In the language of the waterfall and wind | |
| Have vanished with your basswood water-drum. | 10 |
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| Do you recall our cruise to Flute-reed Falls? | |
| Our first together—oh, many moons ago— | |
| Before the curés built the village mission? | |
| How, banked against our camp-fire in the bush | |
| Of sugar-maples, we smoked kin-ník-kin-ník, | 15 |
| And startled the sombre buttes with round raw songs, | |
| With wails that mocked the lynx who cried all night | |
| As if her splitting limbs were torn with pain | |
| Of a terrible new litter? How we talked | |
| Till dawn of the Indian’s Kéetch-ie Má-ni-dó, | 20 |
| The Mighty Spirit, and of the white man’s God? | |
| Don’t you remember dusk at Cold-spring Hollow?— | |
| The beaver-pond at our feet, its ebony pool | |
| Wrinkled with silver, placid, calm as death, | |
| Save for the fitful chug of the frog that flopped | 25 |
| His yellow jowls upon the lily-pad, | |
| And the quick wet slap of the tails of beaver hurrying | |
| Homeward across the furrowing waters, laden | |
| With cuttings of tender poplar … down in the swale | |
| The hermit-thrush who spilled his rivulet | 30 |
| Of golden tones into the purple seas | |
| Of gloam among the swamps … and in the East, | |
| Serene against the sky—do you remember?— | |
| Slumbering Mont du Père, shouldering its crags | |
| Through the crumpled clouds, rose-flushed with afterglow … | 35 |
| And dew-lidded dusk that slipped among the valleys | |
| Soft as a blue wolf walking in thick wet moss. | |
| How we changed our ribald song for simple talk!… | |
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| “My frier’, Ah-déek, you ask-um plenty hard question: | |
| Ugh! W’ere Kéetch-ie Má-ni-dó he live? | 40 |
| W’ere all dose Eenzhun spirits walk and talk? | |
| Me—I dunno!… Mebbe … mebbe over here, | |
| In beaver-pond, in t’rush, in gromping bullfrog; | |
| Mebbe over dere, he’s sleeping in dose mountain … | |
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| “Sh-sh-sh!… Look!… Over dere … look, my frien’! | 45 |
| On Mont du Pére … he’s moving little!… ain’t?… | |
| Under dose soft blue blanket she’s falling down | |
| On hill and valley! Somebody—somebody’s dere!… | |
| In dose hill of Mont du Pére, sleeping … sleeping …” | |
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| And when the fingers of the sun, lingering, | 50 |
| Slipped gently from the marble brow of the glacier | |
| Pillowed among the clouds, blue-veined and cool, | |
| How, one by one, like lamps that flicker up | |
| In a snow-bound hamlet in the valley, the stars | |
| Lighted their candles mirrored in the waters … | 55 |
| And floating from the hills of Sleepy-eye, | |
| Soft as the wings of dusty-millers flying, | |
| The fitful syllables of the Baptism River | |
| Mumbling among its caverns hollowly, | |
| Shouldering its emerald sweep through cragged cascades | 60 |
| In a flood of wafted foam, fragile, flimsy | |
| As luna-moths fluttering on a pool … | |
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| “Caribou, you hear dat?… somebody’s dere!… | |
| Ain’t?… in dose hills of Mont du Pére … sleeping. | |
| Sh-sh-sh!… You hear-um?… dose far ’way Flute-reed Fall? … | 65 |
| Somebody’s dere in Mont du Pére, sleeping … | |
| Somebody he’s in dere de whole night long … | |
| And w’ile he’s sleep, he’s talking little … talking….” | |
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| Hush!—don’t you hear K’tchée-gah-mée at midnight?— | |
| That stretched far out from the banks of Otter-slide | 70 |
| To the dim wet rim of the world—North, East, West?— | |
| The Big-water, calm, thick-flecked with the light of stars | |
| As the wind-riffled fur of silver fox in winter … | |
| The shuffle of the sands in the lapsing tide … | |
| The slow soft wash of waters on the pebbles … | 75 |
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| “Sh-sh-sh!… Look, Ah-déek!… on K'tchée-gah-mée!… | |
| Somebody—somet’ing he’s in dere … ain’t?… | |
| He’s sleep w’ere black Big-water she’s deep … Ho!… | |
| In morning he’s jump up from hees bed and race | |
| Wit’ de wind; but tonight he’s sleeping … rolling little … | 80 |
| Dreaming about hees woman … rolling … sleeping….” | |
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| And later—you recall?—beyond the peaks | |
| That tusked the sky like fangs of a coyote snarling, | |
| The full-blown mellow moon that floated up | |
| Like a liquid-silver bubble from the waters, | 85 |
| Serenely, till she pricked her delicate film | |
| On the slender splinter of a cloud, melted, | |
| And trickled from the silver-dripping edges. | |
| Oh, the splendor of that night!… The Twin-fox stars | |
| That loped across the pine-ridge … Red Ah-núng, | 90 |
| Blazing from out the cavern of the gloom | |
| Like the smoldering coal in the eye of carcajou … | |
| The star-dust in the valley of the sky, | |
| Flittering like glow-worms in a reedy meadow! | |
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| “Somebody’s dere … He’s walk-um in dose cloud … | 95 |
| Look!… You see-um?… He’s mak’-um for hees woman | |
| De w’ile she sleep, dose t’ing she want-um most— | |
| Blue dress for dancing!… You see, my frien’?… ain’t?… | |
| He’s t’rowing on de blanket of dose sky | |
| Dose plenty-plenty handfuls of w’ite stars; | 100 |
| He’s sewing on dose plenty teet’ of elk, | |
| Dose shiny looking-glass and plenty beads. | |
| Somebody’s dere … somet’ing he’s in dere….” | |
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| The green moons went—and many many winters. | |
| Yet we held together, Joe, until our day | 105 |
| Of falling leaves, like two split sticks of willow | |
| Lashed tight with buckskin buried in the bark. | |
| Do you recollect our last long cruise together, | |
| To Hollow-bear, on our line of marten traps?— | |
| When cold Pee-bóan, the Winter-maker, hurdling | 110 |
| The rim-rock ridge, shook out his snowy hair | |
| Before him on the wind and heaped up the hollows?— | |
| Flanked by the drifts, our lean-to of toboggans, | |
| Our bed of pungent balsam, soft as down | |
| From the bosom of a whistling swan in autumn … | 115 |
| Our steaming sledge-dogs buried in the snow-bank, | |
| Nuzzling their snouts beneath their tented tails, | |
| And dreaming of the paradise of dogs … | |
| Our fire of pine-boughs licking up the snow, | |
| And tilting at the shadows in the coulee … | 120 |
| And you, rolled warm among the beaver-pelts, | |
| Forgetful of your sickness-on-the-lung, | |
| Of the fever-pains and coughs that wracked your bones— | |
| You, beating a war song on your drum, | |
| And laughing as the scarlet-moccasined flames | 125 |
| Danced on the coals and bellowed up the sky. | |
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| Don’t you remember?… the snowflakes drifting down | |
| Thick as the falling petals of wild plums … | |
| The clinker-ice and the scudding fluff of the whirlpool | |
| Muffling the summer-mumblings of the brook … | 130 |
| The turbulent waterfall protesting against | |
| Such early winter-sleep, like a little boy | |
| Who struggles with the calamity of slumber, | |
| Knuckling his leaden lids and his tingling nose | |
| With a pudgy fist, and fretfully flinging back | 135 |
| His snowy cover with his petulant fingers. | |
| Out on the windy barrens restless bands | |
| Of caribou, rumped up against the gale, | |
| Suddenly breaking before the rabid blast, | |
| Scampering off like tumbleweeds in a cyclone … | 140 |
| The low of bulls from the hills where worried moose, | |
| Nibbling the willows, the wintergreens, the birches, | |
| Were yarding up in the sheltering alder-thicket … | |
| From the cedar wind-break, the bleat of calves wedged warm | |
| Against the bellies of their drowsy cows … | 145 |
| And then the utter calm … the wide white drift | |
| That lay upon the world as still and ghastly | |
| As the winding-sheet of death … the sudden snap | |
| Of a dry twig … the groan of sheeted rivers | |
| Beating with naked hands upon the ice … | 150 |
| The brooding night … the crackle of cold skies … | |
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| “Sh-sh-sh-sh!… Look, my frien’,… somebody’s dere!… | |
| Ain’t?… over dere?… He’s come from dose Land-of-Winter!… | |
| Wit’ quilt he’s cover-um up dose baby mink, | |
| Dose cub, dose wild arbutus, dose jump-up-Johnny … | 155 |
| He’s keep hees chil’ens warm for long, long winter … | |
| Sh-sh-sh-sh!… Somebody’s dere on de w’ite savanne!… | |
| Somebody’s dere!… He’s walk-um in de timber … | |
| He’s cover-um up hees chil’ens, soft … soft …” | |
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| And later, when your bird-claw fingers rippled | 160 |
| Over the holes of your cedar Bée-bee-gwún | |
| Mellowly in a tender tune, how the stars, | |
| Like little children trooping from their teepees, | |
| Danced with their nimble feet across the sky | |
| To the running-water music of your flute … | 165 |
| And how, with twinkling heels they scurried off | |
| Before the Northern Light swaying, twisting, | |
| Spiralling like a slender silver smoke | |
| On the thin blue winds, and feeling out among | |
| The frightened starry children of the sky … | 170 |
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| “Look!… in de Land-of-Winter … somet’ing’s dere!… | |
| Somebody—he’s reaching out hees hand!… for me!… | |
| Ain’t?… For me he’s waiting … Somebody’s dere!… | |
| Somebody he’s in dere, waiting … waiting …” | |
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| Don’t you remember?—the ghostly silence, splintered | 175 |
| At last by a fist that cracked the hoary birch, | |
| By a swift black fist that shattered the brittle air, | |
| Splitting it into a million frosty fragments … | |
| And dreary Northwind, coughing in the snow, | |
| Spitting among the glistening sheeted pines, | 180 |
| And moaning on the barrens among the bones | |
| Of gaunt white tamaracks mournful and forlorn … | |
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| “Sh-sh-sh-sh!… My Caribou!… Somebody’s dere!… | |
| He’s crying … little bit crazy in dose wind … | |
| Ain’t?… You hear-um?… far ’way … crying | 185 |
| Lak my old woman w’en she’s lose de baby | |
| And no can find-um—w’en she’s running everyw’ere, | |
| Falling in snow, talking little bit crazy, | |
| Calling and crying for shees little boy … | |
| Sh-sh-sh-sh!… Somet’ing’s dere … you hear-um?… ain’t?… | 190 |
| Somebody—somebody’s dere, crying … crying …” | |
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| Then from the swale, where shadows pranced grotesquely | |
| Solemn, like phantom puppets on a string, | |
| A cry—pointed, brittle, perpendicular— | |
| As startling as a thin stiff blade of ice | 195 |
| Laid swift and sharp on fever-burning flesh: | |
| The tremulous wail of a lonely shivering wolf, | |
| Piercing the world’s great heart like an icy sword … | |
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| “Look!… Quick!… Ah-déek!… Somebody’s dere!… | |
| Ain’t?… He’s come—he’s come for me—for me! | 200 |
| Me—me, I go!……. My Caribou … | |
| Dose fire—dose fire she’s going out—she’s cold … | |
| T’row—t’row on dose knots of pine … Mee-gwétch!… | |
| And pull ’way from dose flame—dose pan of sour-dough, | |
| If you want eat—in de morning—damn-good flapjack … | 205 |
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| “Sh-sh-sh-sh!… Somet’ing’s dere!… You hear-um?… ain’t?… | |
| Somebody—somebody’s dere, calling … calling … | |
| I go … I go—me!… me … I go….” | |
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