TAMARACK BLUE
31
To welcome her. The daughter paused, uncertain,
The passing of a breath. Haunted her face;
The dear dim ghosts of wildwood yesterdays
Laid gentle hands upon the half-breed's heart,
Struggled to bring her soul to life again.
She wavered. Then conscious of the battery
Of parish eyes upon her, the village code
Rich with taboos of blue and flinty flesh,
And mindful of the gulf between the two,
Sprung from her Christian culture at the Fort,
She gathered up her new-born pride, and froze.
With eyes as cold and stony as a pike's
She looked at Tamarack—as on a vagrant wind;
With but the tremor of a lip, a fleeting
Hail and farewell, she slipped her flaccid palm
From out the pagan's gnarled and weathered hand
And rustled down the room and out the door,
The stranger at her heels—a coyote warm
And drooling on the trail of musky deer.
The passing of a breath. Haunted her face;
The dear dim ghosts of wildwood yesterdays
Laid gentle hands upon the half-breed's heart,
Struggled to bring her soul to life again.
She wavered. Then conscious of the battery
Of parish eyes upon her, the village code
Rich with taboos of blue and flinty flesh,
And mindful of the gulf between the two,
Sprung from her Christian culture at the Fort,
She gathered up her new-born pride, and froze.
With eyes as cold and stony as a pike's
She looked at Tamarack—as on a vagrant wind;
With but the tremor of a lip, a fleeting
Hail and farewell, she slipped her flaccid palm
From out the pagan's gnarled and weathered hand
And rustled down the room and out the door,
The stranger at her heels—a coyote warm
And drooling on the trail of musky deer.
The widow held her posture, breathless, stunned;
Swayed for a moment, blindly groped her way,
And wilted to the bench—as when a mallard,
Swayed for a moment, blindly groped her way,
And wilted to the bench—as when a mallard,
