Bushed (Earle Birney 1954)

  

He invented a rainbow but lightning struck it

shattered it into the lake-lap of a mountain

so big his mind slowed when he looked at it

Yet he built a shack on the shore

learned to roast porcupine belly and

wore the quills on his hatband

At first he was out with the dawn

whether it yellowed bright as wood-columbine

or was only a fuzzed moth in a flannel of storm

But he found the mountain was clearly alive

sent messages whizzing down every hot morning

boomed proclamations at noon and spread out

a white guard of goat

before falling asleep on its feet at sundown

When he tried his eyes on the lake, ospreys

would fall like valkyries

choosing the cut-throat

He took then to waiting

till the night smoke rose from the boil of the sunset

But the moon carved unknown totems

out of the lakeshore

owls in the beardusky woods derided him

moosehorned cedars circled his swamps and tossed

their antlers up to the stars

Then he knew though the mountain slept, the winds

were shaping its peak to an arrowhead

poised

But by now he could only

bar himself in and wait

for the great flint to come singing into his heart 

Earle Birney 

1954