Slow Smoke/Rattling-Claw

by Lew Sarett

FIGURES IN BRONZE

 

Grand Portage Reservation
Flute-reed River
Lake Winnibigoshish
Lake Superior
Grand Marais, Minnesota

RATTLING-CLAW An 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 tookA buckskin pack upon her shoulder-blades;And from the cranberry swamps of Val BrillantShe slogged upon the devious snow-shoe trailOf Two-Guns-Calf, her sire, and followed himTo Goat-haunt Range, to mountain solitude.

Ninety-four miles from kin and village folkThey 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 luxuryThe annual yield of fruit and maple-sugar.

Here in the hostile upland, Rattling-Claw,Groomed by the keen wind, the alpine sun,Waxed opulent with beauty; in maidenhoodShe blossomed like a lily, a crimson lily,Wafted as seedling from a lowland swampTo chilling solitude of timber-line,And come, by stroke of chance, to rich ripe fruit—When mellow sun brought flushed maturityTo all her sisters in the far savanne.

I recollect the night I came on them.The District Ranger, fearing forest-fires,Had sent me out to run down flaming stubsStruck in the pineries by lightning-flash.A twilight caught me at the mountain lodgeOf Two-Guns-Calf; electing to break the nightWith him, I picketed my mare, I flungMy blankets down and shared his food and flame.

While Two-Guns pried me gently for the newsOf Val Brillant, his daughter set the bowlsOf steaming wild-rice, the roast of venison.And as we spoke, she lingered at my side,Solicitous of every mood and whim, Trembling at every touch of casual hand,Eager to salvage from our talk a glanceOf admiration, a morsel of approval.And warranted they were! Suffused her fleshFrom clear cold winds; seductive was the curveOf throat that palpitated with an ardorSprung from a wild sweet earth; the dusky eyes,Low-lidded with a shy slow invitation—A crimson lily ripe for seed, and waiting,Waiting for pollen-bearing winds to comeFrom out a far low country, a humming-bird,A butterfly, a roving bumblebee.

And later, when we left old Two-Guns noddingBeside the fire, and ventured down the trailTo Heron Spring, to fill our birch-bark buckets—Vivid the memory: the stoic firs,The lichen-covered ridge, the pool of skyQuivering with silver fish, the eager pupilClose by my side the while my finger sketchedOn night the constellations, star by star,The Northern Crown, the Bear, the Flying Swan—Too few they were! And when a timber-wolfShivered the solitude with eerie wails That drove her to my arms in playful fright:The rounded warmth of her, the yielding flesh,The moist vermilion of her mouth that brushedBy chance against my cheek—oh! it would testThe iron in the will of any manTo hold secure its chill integrityAgainst the surging fire of Rattling-Claw;Either it yielded, molten, soon or late,Or else was purified to tempered steel. . . .

In Goat-haunt Range, old Rattling-Claw, alone,Flings out the line of traps, draws up aloneHer buckets at the spring, and sets the roastOf venison before her palsied sire;In Goat-haunt isolation, Rattling-Claw,Wasted by years, by hungers unfulfilled,Companioned by a hound on whom she rainsHer ardor, lets fall her virtues one by oneTo earth like petals withered—a lily, parchedIn the Moon-of-Turning-Colors-in-the-Leaves,Raspy of blade, forlornly wilted, waiting,Waiting for pollen-bearing winds to comeFrom out a far low country, a venturing moth,A roving bee, a bird, a butterfly.