A number of years ago, in fact, when I left Iowa City,
my then wife and I drove in a little Volkswagen,
camping out on the way, hating each other
on a five-day trip to Portland, Oregon,
where I was going to teach.
This next poem is concerned with that.
A few things you have to know about it.
One is, "Rosebud" is the title of the poem.
That's in reference to the Rosebud Indian Reservation,
in South Dakota.
The Greasy Grass mentioned in the poem
was the Indian name for the Little Bighorn.
And the Sioux holy man who's mentioned in the poem
is Black Elk. Who some of you probably
know of from the book Black Elk Speaks.
"Rosebud"
There's a place in Montana where the grass stands up
two feet, yellow grass, white grass,
the wind on it like locust wings, and the same shine.
Facing what I think was south, I could see a broad valley
and river, miles into the valley, that
looked black, and then trees.
To the west was more prairie, darker
than where we stood because the clouds covered it.
A long shadow, like the edge of rain racing toward us.
We had been driving all day and the day
before, through South Dakota, along the Rosebud, where
the Sioux are now farmers and go to school
and look like everyone.
In the reservation town, there was a Sioux museum and trading
post, some implements inside, a long bow of shined wood
that lay in its glass case, reflecting light.
The walls were covered with framed photographs.
The Oglala posed in fine dress in front of a few huts,
some horses nearby.
A feeling, even in those photographs the size of a book,
of spaciousness.
I wanted to ask about a Sioux holy man
whose life I had recently read and whose vision had gone
on hopelessly past its time.
I believed then that only a great loss
could make us feel small enough to begin again.
The woman behind the counter talked endlessly on.
There was no difference I could see between us,
so I never asked.
The place in Montana was the Greasy Grass,
where Custer and the 7th Cavalry fell, a last important victory
for the tribes.
We had been driving all day, hypnotized.
And when we get out to enter the small, flat, American tourist
center, we began to argue.
And later, walking between the dry grass and reading plaques,
my wife made an ironic comment.
I believe it hurt the land, not intentionally.
It was only meant to hold us apart.
Later, I read of Benteen and Ross and those who escaped.
But what I felt then was final.
Lying down, face against the warm side of a horse,
and feeling the lulls endlessly, the silences just before death.
The place might stand for death, every loss
rejoined in a wide place.
Or it is rest, as it was after the long drive,
nothing for miles but grass, a valley to the south,
and living in history.
Or it was just a way of living, gone, like our own,
every moment.
Because what I have to do daily and what is done to
me are a number of small indignities.
I have to trust that many things we all say to each other
are not intentional, that every indirect word will accumulate
over the earth.
And now, when we may be approaching something final,
it seems important not to hurt the land.