The Four Trumps of the Dakotas(The Shovelman & His Nine Stops)

In which we hear told of the weird turning of spring to winter, its significance in the mind of our narrator Ray Lahoon, his remembering the deaths of his beloved girl at the hands of the sorcerer “Rebel Bone,” and the Maid’s occult burying thereafter.

Part the Third

The Sage Lord Buffalo
Is my herdsman;
I shall want
Only ever light
From ash
And from bone

He is my Lord
Light

Light
Restoreth my souls
To soul
Reconnecting one
To the other
To the third
To the fourth

Princes all
And lords each
Of war and of peace
Of north and of east

Light restoreth me!

And rebuilds it thus
The house
That was my home
Before
Even then
That day I slipped
From womb
To the hard earth

My home
A temple
Transfigured
To flesh and to bone

All fades
And it is good
That it is so

Driving past
The Town of James
And a giant buffalo
Brown like drawn tight earth
you take and must stab
rip, pull, draw
and hold between your hands
that soil
raw

Strange
Statue
Worshiping
Nothing
An ounce of Plastic
A pound of Metal

Where now
Have gone
The
Tons
Of bone?

Strewn
Over plain
And prairie

A nation
Built on bones

Goliath
slain

Yet I am not a settler
For I have never settled

No instead
Claimant
Scream!

Dig! Trump
I am the Shovelman
the King
who’ll kill the giant
bone

Dig! Trump
She is the Maid
who died in the unblemished
snow

Dig! Trump
There stands the other man
Resting upon his spade

Dig! Trump
And I alone
Drive drive drive
Harping so
Drumming
On my turning
wheel
My devils
Fly

I have none
Anymore

They are gone
With the turning
Seasons

As the seasons unwind
surreal

As memory
Arrives

So flies
The devil

For what god
or fiend
can stand such a
sad
scorching memory
or dare interrupt
this
renewing dream?

None of which
I know
Nor care I
For I am my gods and fiends
And they’ve been
Good to me

I shall loose them
When I please

Oh snow
Snowflakes
Fall

Soon I will
Thrust tongue
And lap the infinite
As they fall

Like a child
Muted in pleasure
By the first season’s
Snow
Unbound from spring’s
Bright insolence

All things
Transitioning back:

I am aggrieved
At myself
And at my past
And at the land
The very land
Beneath these
Wheels
These very wheels
That speed me along

Aggrieved
Yanked, torn
Broken
I can feel
My very bones
Rattle
As I go
As the sun
Turns to snow

My bones
One day
Will turn to
Ash
Will turn to
Stone

Downward
I shall go

And I want so much
For light to rise
From those spectacular
Ashen bones
For an abysm
To open
And swallow
Me whole: light
Triumphant
Over stone

Light
Shall triumph
Over stone

And somewhere
Between the two
Bone

And there
My rebellious heart
Hardened
Melts

Just one flake
Of snow

*

He digs once
And his fingers
Bend inward

I am guilty, complicit:
me

He digs thrice
And his arms
Collapse

T’was that elusive Rebel Bone
born of the triangle
of the word sprung
from the girl’s lips
shot east to rest
with me

T’was he that murdered
she

Resting
He digs three times three
And rolls the body in

Nine feet nine chambers
Inside

The secret lies

There shall her shrine
And temple
Be

Buried
inside
Beneath
inside
Hard earth
and
under
snow

There shall her shrine
And temple
Be

Read the Lyric from the Beginning