Prophetstown

(Revising...)

They’re burning the prairie.
The white-tailed deer on
The edge of the fen, silent,

While you pick your way
Through sedge, milkweed
Casks, a violence of spring

Welling out of the ground
(Otherwise known as sinking. )
Tecumseh, for the moment,

Is out of town, and who knows
About his brother and those hands --
No -- arms he is holding up

Like Moses and his people
At the Red Sea, the waters
Escaping, the armies sure

To rise up out of
The history of glaciers
Subterranean springs.