Early Moon
Early Moon - meaning Summary
Memory of the Red Man
The poem evokes a nocturnal scene where an "early moon" appears as a baby canoe amid silver foxes and stars. It frames the landscape as a memory-panel recalling Native American presence: watchers, runners, and the ghosts of Mississippi Valley riders return beneath the moon. The mood is wistful and reverent, treating the night as a space where past lives and dreams quietly reappear and are observed by natural sentinels.
Read Complete AnalysesTHE BABY moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west. A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon. One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers. O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams. Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West? Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?— no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail? Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west?
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