Belly down on the rug I turned the pages large and clumsy as sails. The names stirred with the voices of ancestors, Coeur d'Alene, Petosky, San Luis, telling of work and the embezzled earth, Longdale's Furnace, Alloy, Nitro, Leadville. From the map's homely face, voices, like my mother's summoning the cat, called lost animals, Buffalo, Lame Deer, Nighthawk, Beaver, Phoenix, or like children giggled at their own jokes, Noname, What Cheer, Truth or Consequences. I took into the dark, postcards round my sleeping-pillow, places that named their pictures, setting my dreams at Licking River, Bitter Root, Lone Pine, and others whose incantation entranced my sleep, Durango, Chinook, Ramona, Monongahela. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EXCELLENCY OF CHRIST by GILES FLETCHER THE YOUNGER SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING: 5 by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) NO MARVEL IS IT by BERNART DE VENTADORN THE SILVER BIRD OF HERNDYKE MILL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN MAXIMS FOR THE OLD HOUSE: THE BEST ROOM by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: THE NORTH SEA by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |