York
— “here all the party of Sergt. Pryors joined us except my man York, who had stopped to rite his load and missed his way”
— William Clark, 7 Dec 1805
So different with this name,
before, tied to them who depended
on your skill, your speed
through prairie-grass, your eye
for foot and trail
(passed down
from the first to skip domain
and lead a tracker deeper
into losing you, reading land
as you, then someone else,
drawing what you needed
then against your need)
so acute
at first they might have thought
you inhuman, then human, more,
the wood-sense you had
by your hands they should have kissed
and did at last by taking all the bands
they could – already slipping them
in the high, blue grasses of the mountains
like water in a dry country, leaving
the marks of leaving marks behind
so good it seemed you were moving
north and west.
I wish
I had your journals,
that I could read
and follow what I cannot see
up this rock, this trail
into that blank
beyond what anyone could name.
originally appeared in South Dakota Review
