316
14 & 15
Sunday. Coming in through town
nearing the business section
I'd seen a white horse standing
at the back porch of a house,
eyes half shut against the snow
and a white goat on the steps
sheltering under his neck.
Also three small boys, playing
basketball in the snowswirl
in a front yard of bare dirt.
Also a young, pregnant woman
who watched me as I drove by
from the doorway of a worn
house trailer, her coat fl apping.
16 & 17 & 18
That a man should die for such
may not be sweet and fi tting.
In its unassuming way
the town seems the worthier,
though, when you think how common
to die for a town has been,
how the survivors come back,
to fi nish a lifetime's slow
and wobbly trajectory --
weathering a winter storm
along with white horse and goat ...
if you were Utes, you came back
to lean-tos made of brush,
or skin tents for the winter ...