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I saw her first through wavering candlelight,
My sister in her cradle, one hour old;
Outside the snow was drifting through the night,
But she lay warm, oblivious to the cold.
Her eyes were closed, the half-moist wisps of hair,
A honey harvest on her wrinkled head,
The smile upon her face as if she was elsewhere,
But she knew the land she had inherited.
My mother there at peace, her labour done,
Their greyness gone, her cheeks were coralline,
She welcomed me, her wondering first-born son
And placed my sister's new-nailed hand in mine.
I looked through the freezing window pane,
The whitening acre bare and stretching far
That nine months hence would heave with swelling grain,
And over every distant peak a star.
And she, my winter sister, does she know
That all this homely countryside is hers,
Where once were warring Sioux and buffalo,
And covered wagons full of travellers?
But I will tell her the Indian tales,
And show her grass-high fields, and sugar beet,
We'll ride all day along the western trails,
Missouri River glinting at our feet.
Montana born, she'll sleep beneath these beams,
And learn the simple ways, and say her prayers,
And even now she may see in her dreams
Another boy come climbing up the stairs.
By
Leonard Clark
