Indian Summers

More than lush. Loaded. Like a stick of dynamite
with a slow, lit fuse: maybe a tearing candle
on a keg of gunpowder... in a ship...
like the one that alchemistically shuttled
slaves, molasses, and rum to gold. In time,
even starched barbarity, epically attempting
to contort new subjects into a singing serfdom,
resigned. The encomenderos failed to convert
themselves to a feudal Mediterranean latifundio
sanctified by a Spanish crown. Now, the land
has another border and the dreams of two
postcolonial states. On some level, our peace,
like the smoking tomahawk, has been engineered.

In the real summer in Texas, bats up from Mexico
still devour mosquitoes; actual houses have been
maintained for them by wise and appreciative
stewards of the land. "Bat houses?" some
of the intrepid but perplexed strangers ask.
Traveling in New England, "Indian summers...,"
I remember thinking: "Strange terrain
of adjectives and nouns: strange successions
of wills and scattered rationales."

Copyright © 2006 Scott Hightower All rights reserved
from Part of the Bargain
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission