WHAT
HAPPENED?
Growing old was
easy.
I didn’t even try;
and never did I
realize
how swiftly time
would fly.
The hardest part
was laughing
at the joke time
played on me.
What happened to
the pretty face
I always used to
see?
Bette Wolf Duncan
TEX
LAFITTE
His Pa was from
the Bayou,
not far from Thibodaux.
His mother, from
El Paso,
by way of Mexico.
Though he was born
in Texas,
and considered
Texican,
he cursed a lot
in Cajun;
and his songs were
Mexican.
He’d played a lot
of poker
from Big D to San
Antone.
Sometimes it cost
him plenty-
near everything
he owned.
But New Orleans
was different.
It was good to
Tex Lafitte.
He seldom lost
a poker game
while down on Bourbon
Street.
The wailing horns
of Bourbon Street
pulsated in his
blood.
He’d sink into
their rhythms
as if sucked by
bayou mud.
He liked the beat
on Bourbon Street.
He liked its boozy
blues;
and when he played
on Bourbon Street
he’d very seldom
lose.
Bourbon Street,
he said, was where
his lucky lady
stayed.
On Bourbon Street,
she held his hand
most every game
he played.
The fact is, down
on Bourbon Street,
his luck was just
the same;
but with more verve
and far more nerve,
he played a different
game.
One Mardi Gras,
a few years back,
it seems that Tex
Lafitte
met an East Coast
card sharp,
down on Bourbon
Street.
The card slick
knew most every trick
and tried out quite
a few….
but none of it
availed him much
because Tex knew
them, too.
Tex just plain
outplayed him
at every trick
he tried.
There wasn’t much
Tex failed to see;
Nor card the slick
could hide.
The stranger played
the poker game
as if he’d won
a lot;
but when the game
was over
it was Tex that
won the pot.
The stranger lost
more than the pot.
The stranger lost
his cool.
He called Lafitte
a dirty cheatin’,
two-bit greaser’s
fool.
He bellowed many
curses out;
but kept repeating
one.
Lafitte was just
a “dirty cheatin’
two-bit greaser’s
son”.
Tex ignored him
till the stranger
flashed a loaded
gun;
and said that only
one of them
would walk when
night was done.
Two shots exploded
in the air,
and echoed in the
street.
One was from the
stranger’s gun;
one shot was from
Lafitte.
The stranger had
a crystal ball.
The words he said
came true,
that only one of
them would walk
when the night
was through.
Only one survived
the night…
as threatened…only
one…
the one he called
the “dirty cheatin’,
two-bit greaser’s
son”.
Bette Wolf Duncan
©1999
http://www.users.uswest.net/~wacobill/
SACRIFICE
CLIFF
The Land Of Shining
Mountains-
Their people knew
it when
First Maker owned
Montana,
and it wasn’t ruled
by men.
The warriors rode
toward the cliff-
the children of
the long-beaked bird;
in Indian tongue,
the Apsaalookes;
Crow, the white
mans word.
The Sun God soon,
would ride off west,
packing up his
golden light;
but they’d be dead
before the dog-star
climbed into the
dusky night.
Every breeze brought
whiffs of pine
and pungent scents
of gray-green sage.
None of it could
ease their pain,
or stem their bitter
rage.
Prairie dogs and
sage hens
still scrambled
wildly on the range;
but piles and piles
of buffalo skulls
spoke loudly of
the chilling change.
No medicine could
conjure back
the herds of buffalo,
that always had
provided food
and clothes and
shelter for the Crow.
Their hunting grounds
had shrunk away
to nearly fly speck
size.
They used to hunt
on lands as vast
and distant as
the eagle flies.
White Father broke
his treaties.
He spoke with tongue
of snake-
breaking all the
treaties
and promises he’d
make.
Their battle was
all over.
Their hunting days
were done.
The white man's
guns were many,
and their hunt
had just begun.
The Crows could
fight the soldiers
and the bullets
they possessed….
but they couldn’t
fight the pox-fire
the white men brought
out west.
Their village had
been scourged by pox
and nearly half
had died.
Montana had been
washed by blood.
Grief had swept
the country side.
Blood had seeped
into the soil
where now the sagebrush
grew;
and blood had stained
the memory
of every lodge
they knew.
There was blood
upon the prairie;
and blood upon
the sun.
Tears flowed deep
inside them-
but their ride
was almost done.
The One Who Had
Made Everything
was angry with
the Crow.
The tribe owed
him a sacrifice
before He’d ease
their woes.
The warriors gathered
on the Rims
around a rocky
bluff.
Perhaps the sacrifice
they’d give
that day, would
be enough.
With blindfolds
on their ponies
down off the cliff
they plunged-
their sacrifice
completed
and their tribal
debt expunged.
The long-beaked
birds were clustered
near the cliff
on scraggly trees-
gliding, riding
downdrafts…
cutting circles
in the breeze.
It was The Moon
Of Heat Waves.
The grass was brown
and dried.
But the grass turned
black with long-beaked birds,
the day the warriors
died.
Bette Wolf Duncan
© 1998
