Chief Muncie 

Chief Muncie 

for Thomas — poet, mentor, friend, colleague

You belong to that world of long braids, and pipesmoke 
coats papers you pull out of your weathered bag 
and hand me and riddle my brain. Your poetry is 
what I think ancient ruins are made of.  Gold glimmering
from the domes of exotic dreams. Riders on horseback
come dragging in the dust of a Montana evening and you
capture their essence, and the streets of this Indiana town
shine in the rain as it blackens the tree trunks, 

then the yard shines, smell that rain and remember
when the lilacs first tempted you to spring.  
Our lives sprawl out before us
begging us to inspect them and spindle the corners
and ransack the trunks for bits of our living. 
You have an eye that gathers the corn
and when I finally squeeze out a word

about how cold the river was that May, even though 
the tulips flooded the houses on Main Street, 
you look so surprised that I remember,
and I have to remind you that I have lived here a long time, 
even longer than when I knew you, took summer classes, 
drove a car without a license, but I didn’t mean to confess,
and I know you

wouldn’t let me confess any real sins,
like the ones I committed 
when I thought feminism had arrived
to save the world,
before I knew that each soul 
has to save its own life,

but you didn’t know me then, and I am always so glad,
because that was not me, the person you see here
and care to listen to; I have news and a flag, 
and as we walk to the burial ground
where the chief proclaimed this land sacred, 

I know you feel the stream flowing under our feet 
and you hear the call to come home.