A SIGN

                    Our moccasins do not mark the ground.
                                – William Stafford (“Returned To Say”)

We look for sign on soft ground,
something fresh from the past,
even the glint of a wing in the weeds

to draw us from the dusty track.
No one remembers their names,
all the old men or their sayings—

but they are here behind the page,
this side of tomorrow’s sunrise.
They have set up camp, bedrolls

around a fire, each one helpless
as they survey landscapes shrink
and change a little everyday.

‘He looks, but he just don’t see,’
Tom Homer’d say of someone paid
to ride and look, set fences right

or watch the cattle slip away—
then lay down wagers with gentler
angels to pass his long reward.

Ground they know, riding ridges,
they can see what they want—
be entertained or disappointed

with humanity. We look for sign,
listen for whispers on native ground
from all the characters before us.