Dr. Sherman Two Elk’s Death Dream Ft. Cobb, Okla., 1967

I saw a car,
far in the distance,
coming toward me on a straight, gravel road,
lined with telephone poles,
disappearing,
reappearing in a rolling landscape.

It was a place,
unfamiliar to me, though
there were no trees,
just waves of grasses, only
endless grasslands,
cut in half by a straight, gravel road.

But I knew of this place, for
I was told about it, when
I was a child;
it is to the far north.

Clouds of dust rolled from behind the car,
sweeping to the right, from where I stood,
under a solitary oak.

Now it is dusk, and
the moon glows yellow in a deepening blue,
above hills of grasses,
turned brown.

I can see the car is a Cadillac;
I assume it’s coming for me.

Jeff Lockwood