HORSES OF CLARK’S FORK OF THE YELLOWSTONE
– Poetry by John Garmon –
Featured in Issue 18 of Dreamers Magazine
Here is where Chief Joseph led his people to safety.
Men, women, and children climbed out of a box canyon in the dark.
The next morning the cavalry couldn’t believe the people had vanished.
Chief Joseph had urged them along with the young and the old.
They climbed steep rock walls under cover of midnight.
It was a moonless dark night, and it was cold.
Horses stood waiting at the top of the canyon in the dark.
They knew Chief Joseph would bring his people up.
Then the horses carried them away.
No one knows what happened the next day.
Only the horses with their knowledge of directions.
They carried the people away from the Yellowstone River.
The horses were as much a part of the tribe as the people.
Chief Joseph climbed up on his majestic stallion.
He could see in the distance mountains waiting.
The horses didn’t know why the people were escaping.
All they knew was they were there to carry humans away.
The Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River ran deep.
The horses didn’t know why they had to leave.
They carried the men, women, and children to safety.
The U.S. Cavalry didn’t know how the people disappeared.
They had escaped on the horses of the wilderness.
Horses from Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River took them.
They carried the people over the hills and through the valleys.
Before Chief Joseph said he would fight no more forever.
That was when they were only a few miles from Canada.
They could have joined Sitting Bull across the border.
But Chief Joseph could see they would lose their land.
The horses carried the people as far as they wanted to go.
We are all horses of Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone.
About the Author – John Garmon
John Garmon is a poet at the College of Southern Nevada. His poetry appeared in
Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Oregonian, Commonweal, Oyster River Pages, Southern Humanities Review, New Mexico Humanities Review, and many other magazines.
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