Winter Fort
Every year seeps thaw. Marshes soften and swell. In the empty camp on the point, cottonwoods’ wind-borne seeds drift like snow. Once, the fine young Captains rested here. Here, poised for apotheosis, one stern Shoshone girl remembered home. It is a long time Primeau, La Juenesse, the other engages have been released.
In the shady grove, brattle of cicadas.
It was never a secret where those fires burned. Catching a scent of legends, archaeologists dig in the party’s trash pits to catalog cooked bones. All afternoon, earth dapples with cloud shadows.
Out there in green-gold
flows summer’s prairie--
every wind-fold, rimple, wave
Word, the quarterly magazine of the University of California at Santa Barbara, published "Winter Fort" under the title "River 16: Winter Fort" (Fall, 2011).
Image: “The reconstruction of Fort Mandan near Washburn, North Dakota. Public domain. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Fort_Mandan.JPG
Resource: http://www.haibuntoday.com/pages/definitions.html
In the shady grove, brattle of cicadas.
It was never a secret where those fires burned. Catching a scent of legends, archaeologists dig in the party’s trash pits to catalog cooked bones. All afternoon, earth dapples with cloud shadows.
Out there in green-gold
flows summer’s prairie--
every wind-fold, rimple, wave
Word, the quarterly magazine of the University of California at Santa Barbara, published "Winter Fort" under the title "River 16: Winter Fort" (Fall, 2011).
Image: “The reconstruction of Fort Mandan near Washburn, North Dakota. Public domain. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Fort_Mandan.JPG
Resource: http://www.haibuntoday.com/pages/definitions.html
