I watch the Indians dancing to help the young corn at Taos pueblo. The old men squat in a ring
And make the song, the young women with fat bare arms, and a few shame-faced young men, shuffle the dance.
The lean-muscled young men are naked to the narrow loins, their breasts and backs daubed with white clay,
Two eagle-feathers plume the black heads. They dance with reluctance, they are growing civilized; the old men persuade them.
Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed; the beating heart, the simplest of rhythms,
It thinks the world has not changed at all; it is only a dreamer, a brainless heart, the drum has no eyes.
These tourists have eyes, the hundred watching the dance, white Americans, hungrily too, with reverence, not laughter;
Pilgrims from civilization, anxiously seeking beauty, religion, poetry; pilgrims from the vacuum.
People from cities, anxious to be human again. Poor show how they suck you empty! The Indians are emptied,
And certainly there was never religion enough, nor beauty nor poetry here ... to fill Americans.
Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed.
Apparently only myself and the strong
Tribal drum, and the rock-head of Taos mountain, remember that civilization is a transient sickness.
Robinson Jeffers, 1887-1962 – “Inscription for a Gravestone” from Selected Poetry
Leave a Reply