Going to America

High above the shadowed walls
A bright fist of water
A flickering kingfisher
And the swallows flourishing from cliff to cliff.

Down the rutted dirt roads and across the yellow grass
Out across the open fields where the redtails hunt
Down the Hill, the old quarry,
The collapsing barns and barbed wire,
Down to the green glint of the McKenzie,
The eye still runs down the valleylands, old with use,
To the distant hills, blue and gray and green and gray
And beyond them, in sillhouette, Mt June.

I fell in love with you then. I heard your feet
Running on the paths. I knew that somewhere,
Perfectly beautiful, perfectly free, a girl
Was running, and someday I would meet her,
And by certain tokens we would know each other.
And all laws would be abrogated, and the fierceness
Of our love would feed us and clothe us, and we
Would build a house on the shoulder of Mt June.

To the west it would be made of honey,
To the east it would be made of blood,
To the south it would be made of leaves,
And to the north it would be made of grass.

Beloved. One gray stone after another,
And the glittering McKenzie.

In that house all creatures would be safe;
They would come for refuge, lost and frightened.
And we would take them in and care for them
Till they had their strength again, and then
They would go into the world, not really
Knowing, not really remembering. But they might think,
Before the thought escaped them, "I have been
To their house. I have been
To America."

High above the shadowed walls
A bright fist of water
A flickering kingfisher
And the swallows flourishing from cliff to cliff.

Great yellow caterpillars gnaw the ground;
The roads pool with mudspittle and motor oil,
And strange mishapen brutes waddle
In the half light. Chains tense and shriek,
Gears clash. "I have been," I whisper,
"To America."

We wake
From dream to nightmare.
Days draw long shadowy arms around me,
And breathe in my face, and ask repulsive favors.
Oh yes. I have been
To America.

High above the shadowed walls
A bright fist of water
A flickering kingfisher
And the swallows flourishing from cliff to cliff.