You were dressed in leather pants,
With moccasins upon your feet,
And on your head a round
Coon-skin cap stood, and the tails
Of the cap dropped to your back.
You had a flint-lock rifle in your hands,
And a powder-horn hung from your belt.
Kindness and savageness
Rested on your rough and hairless face,
And the paradox resembled
The wilderness through which you strode.
Something variable, strong,
And irresistible was held
By your hooked nose, eyes, and wide, close lips:
Something like the weather—
Wind, and rain, and sun,
With nought but trees and earth to beat against.
Behind you an Indian lurked,
Peering out from a bush,
With feathers sticking straight from his hair,
And naked save for loin-cloth and war-paint.
He held his tomahawk
Poised, and aimed it at your head,
And my heart began to jerk,
Like a fast but crippled acrobat.
I was a boy of twelve
Then, and you were standing
Pictured crudely on the page
Of a hectic, clumsy booklet
Sold for ten cents in a candy store.
Yet, in the moment when I saw you
Threatened, strong, and alert
In the wilderness, an instinct
Told me that you were a poet
Forced to use his eyes and muscles
In the place of words and spoken rhythms—
Writing one long poem
On a space of ground
Afterwards known as Kentucky.