THE SAILOR’S GRAVE ON THE PRAIRIE

He had traveled many miles

seeking a plot of land,

but the homesteaders

who saw him pass,

a stranger with an oar

strapped to his back,

assumed he was headed to sea,

the tall ships

with clouds for sails,

the ports rising out of mist.

In fact, he wanted a house

of stone and mortar,

wood planed from fresh timber,

tar and flashing

to seal out the wind.

No one knows

what stopped him here,

how he died

and who broke

into the hard earth

and laid him to rest,

marking the grave,

not with a cross or stone,

but his bleached oar

to which a compass

had been strung

with a bowline knot.

It may be that even

the local outlaws refrained

from taking that compass,

either because they knew

it is bad luck to steal

from the dead,

or — more likely —

because it belonged

to a man who had lost his way.