OVER the rounded sides of the
Rockies, the aspens of autumn,
The aspens of autumn,
Like yellow hair of a tigress
brindled with pins.
Down on my hearth-rug of desert,
sage of the mesa,
An
ash-grey pelt
Of
wolf all hairy and level, a wolf’s wild
pelt.
Trot-trot to the mottled foot-hills,
cedar-mottled and piñon;
Did you ever see an otter?
Silvery-sided, fish-fanged,
fierce-faced whiskered, mottled.
When I trot my little pony through
the aspen-trees of the
canyon,
Behold me trotting at ease
betwixt the slopes of the golden
Great and glistening-feathered legs of the hawk
of Horus;
The golden
hawk of Horus
Astride above me.
But under the pines
I go slowly
As under the hairy belly of a
great black bear.
Glad to emerge and look
back
On the yellow,
pointed aspen-trees laid one on another like
Feathers,
Feather
over feather on the breast of the great and golden
Hawk as I say of
Horus.
Pleased to be out in the sage and
the pine fish-dotted foot —
hills,
Past the otter’s whiskers,
On to the fur of the wolf-pelt
that strews the plain.
And then to look back to the rounded
sides of the squatting
Rockies,
Tigress brindled with
aspen
Jaguar-splashed, puma-yellow, leopard-livid slopes of
America.
Make big eyes, little
pony
At all these
skins of wild beasts;
They won’t hurt you.
Fangs and claws and talons and beaks
and hawk-eyes
Are
nerveless just now.
So be easy.
Taos.