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On the crown of his head where the fontanelle pulsed between spongy bones, a bald spot is forming, globed and sleek as a monk’s tonsure. I was the earliest pinch of civilization, the one who laced him into shoe leather when he stumbled into walking upright. “Shoes are unfair to children,” he’d grouse. Through a pane of glass that shivers when the wind kicks up I watch my son walk away. He’s out the door, up the street, around a couple of corners by now. I’m in for life. He trips; my hand flies out; I yank it back.

In the laboratory waiting room containing one television actor with a teary face trying a contact lens; two muscular victims of industrial accidents; several vain women—I was one of them— came Deborah, four, to pick up her glass eye. It was a long day: Deborah waiting for the blood vessels painted on her iris to dry. Her mother said that, holding Deborah when she was born, “First I inspected her, from toes to navel, then stopped at her head ...” We wondered why the inspection hadn’t gone the other way. “Looking into her eye was like looking into a volcano: “Her vacant pupil went whirling down, down to the foundation of the world ... When she was three months old they took it out. She giggled when she went under the anaesthetic. Forty-five minutes later she came back happy! ... The gas wore off, she found the hole in her face (you know, it never bled?), stayed happy, even when I went to pieces. She’s five, in June. “Deborah, you get right down from there, or I’ll have to slap!” Laughing, Deborah climbed into the lap of one vain lady, who had been discontented with her own beauty. Now she held on to Deborah, looked her steadily in the empty eye.

Let’s say it’s half a century later. Let’s say it’s never too late. Let’s say Skull Valley. Let’s say. Let’s say it’s half a century later. Let’s say it’s never too late. Let’s say Skull Valley. Let’s say. Time has no mercy. It’s there. It stays still or it moves. And you’re there with it. Staying still or moving with it. I think it moves. And we move with it. And keep moving. Eleven years old and soon to be in fifth grade. That’s time. Boys’ time. Who knows what time it is but them. Eternally. No one knows time better than they. Always and forever. Our family. Mama, me, Angie, Gilbert, Earl, Louise. Kids. Daddy working in Skull Valley for the AT&SF RY. Mama just packed us up in New Mexico and moved us. Suddenly. A surprise. To me anyway. To join Daddy. Who was away most of the time. Arizona. California. Sometimes Colorado. Sometimes Texas. Always away. Railroad work, labor, heavy machinery. Rails and sun. Trains always moving. I remember the war. The 1940s. Soldiers. Tanks. Cannons with huge guns and wheels. Time does have mercy. But it doesn’t enumerate or wait. It moves. And we move with it. Though for boys, maybe? I wanted to wait. So things could happen more gently. A boy misses his father. A boy watches younger sisters. And younger brothers. All growing. And he’s growing. And he misses the times his mother is happy, laughing. Who knows time as well as boys and their young worries? I was a boy growing within a family, community. And dreams. And girls. Girl teenagers. I adored them, their pretty ways. In the fourth grade at McCartys. Made a bookshelf in shop. Proudly. Sanded. Varnished. Shiny. For my Mama. With love. I wanted to be a good carpenter like my Dad. Dad drank though. Dark moods. Dark scary times. Danger. And words hurtful, abrasive, accusing. Anger, pain, scorn. A boy wonders. About time. About forever. When it ends. I loved my Dad. Wonderful. Skilled man. Artist, singer. Precious and assuring. Yet. Yet. Unpredictable moments. You can never tell about time either. Like that, it is. It is. We farmed. Corn, melons, chili, beets, carrots, cilantro. Onions. Even potatoes in little mounds but they died. Corn fields at night. Irrigating. June nights. I loved forever. My grandpa I loved very much. Time was soothing then. We didn’t really need time when days and nights were safe. And with him they were. A healer and respected kiva elder. Herded his sheep. Along with my uncle Estevan. And Roy. Roy was a strange one. Chinese manner. So people said. From Chinatown in California. He had a gentle soft smile. And a storyteller he was. Yes. About his horse. Lightning. Fast and nimble and quick. Lightning, his horse. He’d ride. Yes, ride to see his girl to call her outside. Estella! Estella! Stories. I’d listen. The boy I was. Seeing my uncle riding. Riding his fast and nimble horse. I’d listen and he’d smile. Memory and time. It doesn’t count all the time. Listening. And because mothers are always loving. Alert. Ever caring. Mama decided we must go to Skull Valley where Dad was. Up to Grants, the depot there, we got on the westbound train. Sacks and boxes, a trunk, suitcase or two. Clothes, things. What did we have? I don’t remember. Not much though. We never had much. Poor. And lonely for Dad always away. I wonder. I wonder. Too often that’s been the Indian story. Father gone. Mother and kids left behind. Is it like that? Yes, too much. Dad didn’t like working for the hard railroad. He’d complain and rant about the crude and mean whites. The slave rules. The company. Trains powerful, unending. Time I thought was in the trains. Fast, loud, dangerous. I was afraid of the powerful trains. Like I said I’d see them. Soldiers, army troop trains, going east and going west. Unending. I wondered where they were all going. Where? Lightning and thunder trapped in the train power and steel. Yet I yearned for blue song. Hollow and lonely long tone. Coming round the bend, and something beyond the horizon. Far away maybe. Travel. Some other dream. Youth. Yes. I liked songs. Music I heard on the radio. Hank Williams. And stories that rang through the air. Talk and listening. It was the first time ever we were leaving the reservation. Only one world till then it seemed. Acoma community. Ours. On the edge of another world though, something strange. And fearful too. The dark moments. Like when Daddy drank. When there was fire from another world. An unknown. Yet fascinating somehow, oddly, something on the far horizon. I didn’t remember riding the train before. Ever! Until then. Like riding thunder. The horse, Lightning, Roy talked about. Riding off somewhere into the dark night. Fast, fast. Fast. Riding toward night. We watched the land speeding away. Far across the land, along the edge of it was a highway. With cars and trucks. Moving, moving. Only slower. Time speeds, like you speed. Only not an awareness. Or any way to tell what is taking place. When young. And you’re trying to furnish your own answers, solutions. To mysteries you’re anxious about. When all’s uncertain. Youth is not the time when time is apparent. Too slow. Or too fast. And you don’t really have clear reasons. Yet. At Ashfork we got off the train onto the depot platform. I sensed being lost. Lost mother and lost children. Dusk. Where was this world? Where did home go? Children? Lost at the edge of a strange world with a gray green depot. Large letters painted. Little sister is hungry. She whimpers. Mama says, “Hold my hand.” We walk, up street, walk, walk. It could be Indians. A family, mother and children. Lost? Where are they going? Up the street I think. Looking. For something to eat. My mother held only a little money. Hamburgers we split. Water and water. Self-conscious. Moment is time. I looked out and saw a train passing. Our train! I thought it was our train. But it wasn’t, just fear! Wait. Then a train down Chino Valley. Long-distance night. Stars vanished in too much night. Long day into night. Where does time go? Does it go nowhere but into night? Then at the sudden edge. The horizon. A vast bowl of light. And only at the far end, trees. And still far ahead of us. The train engine light. Always a light showing the way. My brother and I excited. A deer stunned by train light. Stilled. Stark. A cut stone. The dazzling moment held us. Youth and time. Nothing like it. Thrilled. Never until then. Years later I tried to tell about that moment to a love. But love is time too. So. Can’t do anything but live time. The horizon and beyond. Full of stars. Even unseen. Always belief is firmer than faith. With and without dreams. We arrived in Skull Valley early in the morning. Three-thirty? Where were we? On the other side of the moon from Acoma. A mother and her children and assorted bags and boxes. Dreams. Time. Horizon. Farther from home than belief. It felt like that. Within moment when you can’t turn away. A train depot on the other side of the moon. Deserted. After the train pulled away. Only the rails and starshine. What’s a boy say to his mother? Earlier than anything. A man whose picture I’d seen. White man. With a cap. With a visor. Sitting at a tall wooden desk with shelves. And a metal puzzle thing making clicking-clacking noises. Who spoke with Mama. Who smiled. Who wondered at us. An Indian woman with Indian children. Who were strangers. Like we just came from the planet Acoma. The other side. Of day. Of the present early morning night in that moment. The telegrapher with the visor said. I think. I think he did. He knew my father. Knew where he lived. Two miles away. So we took a road. Early, early morning night trek. Time. Shimmers in an odd amazing way. Within what might be. A boy and a story. The dawn coming. Horizon ever so near. When we knocked on his railroad worker housing door. Daddy was shocked. In his underwear. Shadows upon. And the background of his and Mama’s and our history. We come to discover each other. All failures and gains. Counting and mattering, no matter the time or sequence. We laugh and hug and cry. Daddy. Daddy. We’re here. Once again together. Family, history, travel, time, love. To say what time is, even fifty years in the past to now. In this moment, Skull Valley is just as real as it ever was. Memory we cross and cross again. Treks, trauma, and on. We do know what time is. It is loss and gain. A lingering. Within discovery we come to ourselves. Finding. Destiny. Moments recalled like friends. It was that way or another. We’re fairly certain either way. Stories. They are with us. Time doesn’t forsake. It doesn’t soothe or decrease. Never. Skull Valley. A time for a boy. History engulfed beyond. When I went back. Recently. I ate with friends at the cafe. By the railroad track. I was fascinated by photographs. Of the mountain lions in the mountains nearby. Ever there. No matter what. And the stories of bones. Tall tales or truths. They’re told. Apaches, it’s said. Wagon trains. Lies or no. Our history is more than here. We know more than realize. We realize what we don’t know. Or want to know. Truths. Stalk us, just like they found. A boy. More than fifty years ago. He discovered a world beyond Acoma. A world apart. And a world together as time, memory, as story. As his own. We seek and are found. Secure. Actual. Safe. And serene. Last summer near Prescott that boy fifty vast years later. Found carved images on stone walls that fit his hands. Carved in time. Eternal as stone. Past and present. Ever. Let’s say it is ever an ongoing story.

The time I’ve lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing The light, that lies In woman’s eyes, Has been my heart’s undoing. Though Wisdom oft has sought me, I scorn’d the lore she brought me, My only books Were woman’s looks, And folly’s all they’ve taught me. Her smile when Beauty granted, I hung with gaze enchanted, Like him the Sprite, Whom maids by night Oft meet in glen that’s haunted. Like him, too, Beauty won me, But while her eyes were on me, If once their ray Was turn’d away, Oh! winds could not outrun me. And are those follies going? And is my proud heart growing Too cold or wise For brilliant eyes Again to set it glowing? No, vain, alas! th’ endeavour From bonds so sweet to sever; Poor Wisdom’s chance Against a glance Is now as weak as ever.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations O, Death! O, Death! An example of apostrophe: an address to a dead or absent person, or personification as if he or she were present; see glossary definition here). <learning/glossary-term/apostrophe>About this Poem. This poem, published in 1842, is a revision of Whitman’s first published poem “Our Future Lot,” from 1838. In that 20-line poem, similar wording includes: “With flashing hope, and gloomy fear” (line 2); “The troubled heart and wondrous form / Must both alike decay (lines 7-8); “Dull senseless limbs, and ashy face, / But where, O Nature! where will be / My mind’s abiding place? (lines 10-12); and the final line “The common doom—to die!” a black and pierceless pall pall A dark cloud or covering of smoke or dust Hangs round thee, and the future state; No eye may see, no mind may grasp That mystery of fate. This brain, which now alternate throbs With swelling hope and gloomy fear; This heart, with all the changing hues, That mortal passions bear— This curious frame of human mould, Where unrequited cravings play, This brain, and heart, and wondrous form Must all alike decay. The leaping blood will stop its flow; The hoarse death-struggle pass; the cheek Lay bloomless, and the liquid tongue Will then forget to speak. The grave will take me; earth will close O’er cold dull limbs and ashy face; But where, O, Nature, where shall be The soul’s abiding place? Will it e’en e’en Traditional poetic contraction for “even,” pronounced as one syllable to fit the meter of the line live? For though its light Must shine till from the body torn; Then, when the oil of life is spent, Still shall the taper burn? O, powerless is this struggling brain To rend rend Cause great emotional pain to (a person or their heart) the mighty mystery; In dark, uncertain awe it waits The common doom, to die.

Now it's time to play. Nobody says, like they used to, but in my bones the desire overwhelms me. "Write! Make a poem," say the bones. The inlet will come first. It always does. Water calls urgently, "egret." The waterbird that moves elastically over the surface making everything focus soon or late. Now my hand enters. It always does. It gives the bones reason to observe. It makes the egret the finest thing in sight and the water intelligent north of here. Water is genius because it is interconnected. Drop south knows drop north. But the bones will lose their joy if the bird overwhelms the old playground.

Brighter than fireflies upon the Uji River Are your words in the dark, Beloved.

On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785 Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickerin brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee Wi’ murd’ring pattle! I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle, At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, An’ fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave ’S a sma’ request: I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave, An’ never miss ’t! Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, O’ foggage green! An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin, Baith snell an’ keen! Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, An’ weary Winter comin fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro’ thy cell. That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble, An’ cranreuch cauld! But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects drear! An’ forward tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear!

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations munching a plum on the street a paper bag of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good to her. They taste good to her You can see it by the way she gives herself to the one half sucked out in her hand Comforted Comforted When originally published in the journal Smoke(Autumn 1934), the line read: “Comforted, Relieved—” a solace of ripe plums seeming to fill the air They taste good to her

To an army wife, in Sardis: Some say a cavalry corps, some infantry, some, again, will maintain that the swift oars of our fleet are the finest sight on dark earth; but I say that whatever one loves, is. This is easily proved: did not Helen—she who had scanned the flower of the world’s manhood— choose as first among men one who laid Troy’s honor in ruin? warped to his will, forgetting love due her own blood, her own child, she wandered far with him. So Anactoria, although you being far away forget us, the dear sound of your footstep and light glancing in your eyes would move me more than glitter of Lydian horse or armored tread of mainland infantry