Through time their sharp features
Have softened and blurred,
As if they still inhabited
The middle distances,
As if these people have never
Stopped riding hard.

In an opposite direction,
The people of the shattered lances
Who have seemed forever going back.
To have willed this reservation,
It as if they are decided
To be islanders at heart.

As if this island
Has forever been the destination
Of all those dwindling bands.
After the newspaper and TV reports
I want to be glad that
Young Man Afraid of His Horses lives

As a brilliant guerilla fighter,
The weight of his torque
Worn like the moon’s last quarter,
Though only if he believes 
As I believed of his fathers
That they would not attack after dark.