BILLIE POTTS
They called him Little Billie.
He was their darling.
(It is not hard to see the land, what it was.
Low hills, and oak. The fetid bottoms where
The slough uncoiled and in the tangled cane,
Where no sun comes, the muskrat's astute face
Was lifted to the yammering jay; then dropped.
Some cabin where the shag-bark stood and the
Magnificent tulip-tree; both now are gone.
But the land is there, and as you top a rise,
Beyond you
all
the landscape steams and simmers
-The hills, now gutted, red, cane-brake and the black-jack yet.
The oak leaf steam'! unders the powerful sun.
"Mister, is this the right road to Paducah?"
The red face, seamed and gutted like the hills,
Slow under time, and with the innocent savagery
Of Tirnt, the bleared eyes rolling, answers from
Your dream: "They names hit so, but I ain't bin.")
Big Billie was the kind who laughed but could spy
The place for a ferry where folks would come by
In the land between the rivers.
He built an inn and folks bound West
Hitched their horses there to take their rest
And grease the gall and grease the belly
And jaw and spit under the trees.
Big Billie said: "Git down, friend, and take yore ease!"
He would slap you on your back and set you at
his
table.
(Leaning and slow, you see them move
In massive passion colder than any love:
Their lips move but you do not hear the words
Nor trodden twig nor fluted irony of birds
Nor hear the rustle of the heart
That, heave and settle, gasp and start,
Heaves like a fish in the ribs' dark basket borne
West from the great water's depth whence it was torn.
Their names are like the leaves, but are forgot
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