poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

[b]W[/b]hen I face north a lost Cree
on some new shore puts a moccasin down,
rock in the light and noon for seeing,
he in a hurry and I beside him

[b]I[/b]t will be a long trip; he will be a new chief;
we have drunk new water from an unnamed stream;
under little dark trees he is to find a path
we both must travel because we have met.

[b]H[/b]enceforth we gesture even by waiting;
there is a grain of sand on his knifeblade
so small he blows it and while his breathing
darkens the steel his become set

[b]A[/b]nd start a new vision: the rest of his life.
We will mean what he does. Back of this page
the path turns north. We are looking for a sign.
Our moccasins do not mark the ground.

this is the sweetest poem...

Re: the addition: the poem is Stafford's but was probably not submitted by its author since Bill died in the 'nineties. He was the mildest of men and not above belaboring that fact during his readings. The pitfall of being a public man, as Larkin noted, is that he must go around pretending to be himself