RATTLING-CLAWAn Indian Spinster
For thirty Moons-of-Flowers-and-Grass she waited,
Waited for something, something that never came.
When she was but a fingerling, she took
A buckskin pack upon her shoulder-blades;
And from the cranberry swamps of Val Brillant
She slogged upon the devious snow-shoe trail
Of Two-Guns-Calf, her sire, and followed him
To Goat-haunt Range, to mountain solitude.
Waited for something, something that never came.
When she was but a fingerling, she took
A buckskin pack upon her shoulder-blades;
And from the cranberry swamps of Val Brillant
She slogged upon the devious snow-shoe trail
Of Two-Guns-Calf, her sire, and followed him
To Goat-haunt Range, to mountain solitude.
Ninety-four miles from kin and village folk
They lived in isolation, year on year,
Running their otter trap-lines in the hills,
Harvesting rice and roots and saskatoons,
And gathering for margin of luxury
The annual yield of fruit and maple-sugar.
They lived in isolation, year on year,
Running their otter trap-lines in the hills,
Harvesting rice and roots and saskatoons,
And gathering for margin of luxury
The annual yield of fruit and maple-sugar.
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