BILLIE POTTS
(The reflection is shadowy and the form not clear,
For the hour
is
late, is late, and scarcely a glimmer comes here
Under the leaf, the bough, in its innocence dark;
And under your straining face you can scarcely mark
The darkling gleam of your face little less than the water dark.
But perhaps what you lost was lost in the pool long ago
When childlike you lost it and then in your innocence rose to go
Mter kneeling, as now, with your thirst beneath ,the leaves;
And years it lies here and dreams in the depth and grieves,
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More faithful than IlliOther and father in the light or dark of the leaves.
But after, after the irrefutable modes and marches,
Mter waters that never quench the thirst in the throat that parches,
Mter sleep that sieves the long day's dubieties
And the cricket's corrosive wisdom under the trees,
Mter the rumor of wind and the bright anonymities,
You come, weary of greetings and the new friend's smile,
Weary of art of the stranger, worn in the wanderer's wile,
Weary of innocence and the husks of Time,
Prodigal, back to the homeland of no-Time,
To ask forgiveness and the patrimony of your crime;
And kneel in the untutored night as to demand
What gift-Oh, father, father- from that dissevering hand?)
"And whar's Little Billie?" Joe Drew said.
"Air you crazy," said Big, "and plum outa yore head,
Fer you knows he went West nigh ten long year?
"Went West," Joe said, "but I seen him here
Riden up the trace as big as you please
With a long black coat comen down to
his
knees
And a big black beard comen down to his
guts
And silver mountens on his pistol-butts
And
he said out West how he done struck
It
rich and wuz bringen you back yore luck.
"I
shore-God could use some luck," Big Billie said,
But
his
woman wet her lips and craned her head
