Mark B. Hamilton, Through Time, the Joyous Ledges and other poems

Mark B. Hamilton

Through Time, the Joyous Ledges

Where moss and grass brush velvet over moist slate, where patches of ferns flare and each breath descends to the water, and below into the jabbering grottos, those frescos painted by plants in broad strokes,

Cliffs sing the diminishing shade, and flecked edges that slow quick water into a long descent strengthen into a distance smoothed by a journey into a new voice.

The copper-gold pours into the basin, a shallow bowl held by bristles etched by the fringe of sharp branches, and there is no stopping it, the widening of no shade along the arm of this flat river.

So sometimes, I envy speedboats shrinking that distance, their windshields in the breeze, hair flying, sweat cooling, the hull speeding into space with just a flick of its wheel,

Because rowing is different. At 3 mph I feel the shifting water lean from place to place, the earth tilting and altering the river’s speed and course.

My eyes see details in dusty leaves, in bottle caps and bugs, my nose tests the air, my ears the deep hum of factories, and bird call, or the jet ski high-cycling over its own wake, each stroke searching the murk, and sensing the wild adaptations in the energy of flow.

“Use was never the first truth,” says Momaday.

A caramel doe arches her neck and watches from behind a tender pine. Then another, browsing, nibbles on a low shrub. More heads lift from the hidden creek, then, an entire herd moves beyond the rise, all their smooth fur concealed by that single step into the afterglow.

Chrome and Corners

Leisurely campers rouse to feed their fires, dry maples flashing up in the narrow sky, oars bending white on the bright mirror of the creek as I exit.

A hidden wind begins to gust and buffet the dory. Forced toward rocks, waves like puppies crowd the boat, one jumping in with its bucket of water. It wags its tail and curls around my feet.

Golden boulders on the weather shore shoulder into shadow where moist coils of monofilament tangle in the chunks and bits of cut bait. I crab cross-wind, edging away, struggling to pass into the lee.

On shaky legs, I land at an old marina and walk up to rent a motel room with the storm coming. It’s a quick smudge of black sky on the southern horizon. From inside, it looks tame—just lightening, thunder and strong sheets of rain.

Pelican tugs at her lines, the air mixing with sulfur from a paper mill over in Kentucky.

“It smells like this with the storms,” the manager says, worried about the lateness of this year’s fishing season. “I’m usually filled up by now, but it’s late, late, late,” she says, handing me a key and showing me around.

Alone with the walls lined with bunk beds, I cook and eat, then walk along the river in gusts of rain and do laundry in a white room full of chrome and corners.

A Truth

I am not a perfect stranger. I do not even see where they have lived all of their lives.

Immersed as I am in my own progression, I strut proudly in my small place of the summer.

The People show me their disregard at Wolf Point. I land in my silence past knowing,

A young warrior dragging Gander out of the river. Everything floats away into the shade of trees.

My give-away is given without me, a life preserver in the dust, —a misdirection that works.

With an open heart or not, the ritual of sharing sweet snacks, a rifle, sunglasses, and bear spray.

Yesterday is lost, released or abandoned, accepted in a gathering up of today.

The scattered, unbroken things of the darkness, discarded items in the shadows of bushes.

Most are recovered but the 22-410 gets returned much later by a tribal officer

Who speaks of a teenager, a young mother, and about life on the Rez. I can only say, “Thank you, Wolf Point!”

The stop revives me. Kids wave their hands, and my need finds another way.

An island to camp on, bulls that wallow in the dust breaking the dried trees into kindling brush.

Camped in their pasture I’m awkward under the bright moon brimming with white pelicans.

Wingtip to wingtip, rasping close overhead they glide in a “V” toward the darkening river.

Plovers and the snorts of white-tailed deer in the prairie grass, a silence that evening sways.

Wet sneakers on either side of the tent flaps hold the night both inside and out.

Asleep in seconds, I wake to the running of dew and sunlight on the browsing mule deer.

They twitch, scratch and drink. Pleased to be here with them, my discoveries are few and rare:

For chores like sewing a cup of cold tea is a faithful companion in this dry and rugged country.

The mile-wide reservoir moves with the slightest of wind, and fresh-caught walleye really are Lakota lobster tails.

All day, the soft murmur of mud shale along the denuded bank laps the captured water.

I camp in tall grass, in the rustlings of high weeds bending beneath the glow of timid moonlight.

And around my tent coyotes wrestle, yip and roll amid mustard blossoms.

A bowling, rousing inspection; the grass flattened by brothers and sisters of river flow and water stone.

Sick in Bright Light

For days in heavy snow the river runs with slushy ice. In north winds, we stay in huts eating deer and rabbits. I am very unwell and weak. I take Dr. Rush’s physic.

4 degrees above, the branches and bushes gilded with ice. I remain sick all day with coughing, and did not sleep. A beautiful morning, and clear, the blue sunshine deep,

The river covered with smoke, mantled in frost and ice. Gibson kills 2 deer. Others, raccoons and rabbits in quantity. I have a sleigh built for hauling wood from the country.

A freezing snow accumulates, men break through the ice. Another sled is built for firewood. Our stores are weighed. The kegs of pork, flour, whiskey and corn are measured

To stow in the Boat that leans on pries in the shifting ice. Winser was out all night. I remain unwell. Somewhat better I send Howard express to Captain Lewis with a letter.

At night, the cracking crunch consumes in shingling ice. Wiser returns with a turkey and a deer. R. Field, Gibson, And Collins another. Heat and food become our reason.

Potatoes, Brandy, and Porter

Last night, all the porter froze And several bottles broke. The men now stack them exposed, Thawing the bitter beer that folk Favor as brewed from charred malt. Quite good with apples and salt.

Visitors arrive with a warming sky: 3 Frenchmen from Portage des Sioux With potatoes, fowl, meal and brandy And women who sell breads, and sew. The scene widens, the trading slows. Exchanges become people we know.

The Captain delivers new canisters Of powder and flints to the hunters, Then walks with his sextant to a hill And swings the sun’s image until Reflected it sits on the mirror’s line, The horizon more precisely defined.

He notes our position. He calculates From instrument angles, and takes The time to figure tables from books

In plenty of columns when we look, Yet do not stay when he commences. We go outside to replenish our senses.

The sun always shows us where we are When it rises. We don’t measure that far With finely tuned knobs riding a bobble, A steed only Captain Clark can hobble. Later, from Cahokia, the express returns. In a letter from Captain Lewis, we learn

He will arrive tomorrow. There being More letters from Kentucky, and 8 cork Bottles of wine, and files for sharpening, The Sergeant directs us back to work. Captain Clark received some soft, tough Durant, a felted cloth to wrap his cough.

Mark B. Hamilton (MFA, University of Montana) is a poet, teacher, editor, scholar, and environmentalist. He has received numerous state and national poetry awards, grants, fellowships, and an endowment for wilderness studies. Recent poems have appeared in Frogpond, The Listening Eye, About Place Journal, Plainsongs, Wayfarer, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Oxford Poetry, U.K. His chapbook, 100 Miles of Heat, is available from Finishing Line Press (2017).