In the “Foreword” to The Prairie Rider Cantos, University of Wyoming poet Robert Roripaugh wrote that the McGruder section of the book was “ . . . linked by geography, the journey of discovery made by Pitch in his wanderings, the subtle exploration of Western myth and character, and the conceptions of language and style utilized in the writing”

 

To underscore his assertion, Roripaugh continued: “ . . . the more exaggerated and obvious tenets of Western myth are gone.  The cowboy has become a ‘half-breed ranch hand’ in Amarillo, or a vanished rancher named Cline, swallowed up by time and circumstance . . . .   Indians now drive pickup trucks and are seen in The Prairie Rider Cantos as human beings, not stereotyped savages or socio-economic victims.”  In his comment on the style of Pitch’s Journal, Roripaugh pointed out that the prose poems utilize “ . . . parallelism, repetition, alliteration, and a low-keyed but vivid use of diction[,]” ending his “Foreword” with praise for the more formal poems in the second section of the volume: “Acted Out,” “Now It Is Raining,” and “ . . . the longer, more complex ‘Winter River.’”  

 

At present, Ronald Vierling is organizing all of the poetry he has written since the publication of The Prairie Rider Cantos into a single collection, Words [That] Matter.  A sample of two poems from that proposed volume are “Telling Stories” and “Latina.”

 

    Telling Stories

Many times at night, when the wind

was blowing hard against my mother’s house,

I’d awake and go to the kitchen

where I’d find him drinking tea and listening,

smiling more to himself than at me,

and he’d say, “It’s talking, boy.  The house,

the roof beams and rafters.

They’re talking to me, child.”

So I would sit down and wait

because I was old enough to know

there was always more to come

 

“When I’m on deck at night

and the ship is making its way slowly,” he’d say,

“or when I’m in my bunk at night

but not sleeping just before dawn,

the ship speaks to me, nephew.

The beams groan and rumble.

The hull plates shift and talk.”

Then he’d pour me a cup of tea

from my mother’s old porcelain teapot

and nod and wink and say, “Stories, youngster.

The ships’re telling stories.

Things they’ve been through.

Things other ships have told them.

Things every ship needs to know.”

 

I was a boy in those days

and Uncle Bill was already an old man

who came to stay with us between sailing jobs.

But I was never sure if he was

Telling me true or telling me silly.

He laughed a lot during the day, after all,

and he never ran out of fun.

So what was I supposed to think

about this night-time uncle of mine

sitting in my mother’s half-lit house

drinking tea and asking me questions like,

“Where do the stories go, nephew,

when a ship sinks?  Do they

go to the bottom with the cargo,

or do they get passed along from ship to ship

and told over and over again?”

Then Uncle Bill would listen

to the wind blowing hard across the bean fields

and smile and point me off to bed,

and I would obey, of course,

because that’s the way I was raised,

but I would not sleep

any more than I think Uncle Bill must have slept.

Not when the wind kept coming hard all night,

shaking the northeast corner of the house,

what Bill called, “The prow facing the storm, child.

Facing life’s continuous storms.”

I’d lie in bed in the darkness—

not seeing a thing—

but listening to the floor boards shift

and the roof beams shudder

and the walls groan and talk out loud

all the way to the basement.

“Telling stories houses need to know,” I’d say.

“Telling stories just like Uncle Bill’s ships,”

I’d say to myself.

 

Decades have passed since those nights when

Uncle Bill stayed with us in my mother’s house,

and I’ve thought many times about his questions,

because I’ve seen through the years

how far too many old houses go to the bottom,

cleared away for highways and strip malls

and subdivisions of young houses

that all look exactly alike.

But when that happens, I wonder,

when that happens, I ask myself,

do the stories come tumbling down

with the sad old houses

and turn into scrap lumber and

broken bricks hauled away to landfills?

Or are the stories suddenly loosed on the wind

the moment the center beams break?

Do the stories get carried out onto the prairie

where some old family farm house

reaches up and snags them out of the air

and saves them until a poet comes along

to sort out the details?

I mean, do the stories ever go away

and really get themselves forgotten,

or do they find a way of showing up

over and over again in the most unlikely places

until someone who truly knows how to listen

figures out how to tell them in some new way

for all of us to hear?

 

Latina

You’ve seen her countless times

                            In more places than you remember

A dark-skinned young woman,

Mexican, probably, or Columbian,

Her long curly hair pulled back neatly,

Held in place by a white wrap,

Moving silently among tables

In a shopping mall food court,

Wiping up the leaving of a society

That has too much to eat,

Looking about patiently at the excess,

Using a small broom when necessary

To clean up scattered food

As if a covey of children had invaded,

Leaving behind tokens of their immaturity,

Her black eyes saying

I have come to this place, far from home,

To disappear, to be invisible,

To be out of harm’s way.

Yet her eyes tell another tale as well.

For no one in this place will speak her name,

Say, “Hello, you are beautiful,”

Or “I have fallen in love with you” or

“Come live with me and birth my children

and drive my brand new car,”

So she works every day

Waiting for the next thing,

Her way out of this strange place

To which her father fled two years ago,

Bringing her along because his wife was afraid,

The promise he made about a New World

Dancing in her head on the

Dusty ride north,

The promise held close

As she lay huddled in trucks

Under loads of overcoats and blankets

Or raw cabbages in gunny sacks

That smelled of mildew and rats,

The promise that kept her warm

During long nights on the desert

When the wind swept south

Off the mountains and she

Crawled among rocks and snakes,

And waits for the door to open or slam shut.

She does not know which.

So she waits and is silent and looks away,

Unsure of what it means that I

Look at her and smile and then

                            Go away to write this poem

The Library Journal named The Prairie Rider Cantos one of the best small press titles published in 1974.  The review of Prairie Rider in the Journal said, “Tracing the hitch-hiking and walking travels of    . . . Pitch McGruder, [Vierling] presents narrative[s] of modern America—Indians included—in an uncomplicated, visually intelligent, fashion.” Also focusing her attention on “The Journal of Pitch McGruder” section of the book, poet Virginia Scott Miner wrote in the Kansas City Star that “ . . . McGruder is a keen-eyed and intuitive observer.  Meanings rise between the lines of these poems . . . .  Faces come and go, the landscape changes, but the people are real in their searches, frustrations, and occasional illuminations.”  She concluded her review by saying that “The Prairie Rider Cantos [is] the fusion of imagination and observation, of artist and writer . . . .”

 

The Prairie Rider Cantos was published by Dakota Press, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota 57069.  ISBN 0-88249-020-6."

 

 

 

 

An experienced educator and dramatic speaker, who has taken part in both poetry workshops and poetry readings, Ronald offers two types of assemblies for high school students.  The first is a one-hour presentation, thirty minutes of which is a reading of poems by William Shakespeare, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Carlos Williams, Robert Roripaugh, and Lori Howe, followed by thirty minutes of reading from his own poetry.

 

The second type of assembly is a one-hour presentation in which Ronald combines a lecture about the magical power of poetry to express all human emotions with a reading of selections of his own poetry.

 

Interested English teachers and/or school administrators may arrange for either one or both of the assemblies by contacting Ronald at rvierling@cfl.rr.com The cost of either assembly includes reimbursement for the cost of travel as well as a fee for his presentation.    

 

Front Cover Illustration

Back Cover Photo 1974

Poems from The Prairie Rider Cantos

 

Prologue: Mid-November

 

                          So the young man stayed on and wrote this book.  

 

                        From Winter River

 

                       To An Indian Girl, Waiting

 

                Indian girl, I have watched you

    sitting in the bus depot,

    staring out the streaked window,

    for hours, now.

 

    I have watched you

                eating an ice cream,

    reading a book, passing time

    that was nothing more

 

    than time passing.

    And surrounded by travelers,

    and baggage, and murmer,

    I sent my love to you,

 

    and to your fathers,

    and their fathers,

    and then to you, again.

    That you did not see me

 

    sitting midst the drab confusion,

    I will come to accept tomorrow.

    But today, know this

    Indian girl, please

 

    know this: when you are older,

    when your dark child’s eyes

    become a woman’s wanting,

    look for me one day in

 

    Dakota.  Look for me

    on the crest of some

    blue distant hill,

    along the edge of a sunrise

    But       

                prairie rain.

    For I will come riding for you,

    Indian girl.  I will come     

    riding for you.

 

       But today, know this

    Indian girl, please

 

                 Winter River

 

                             1

Slowly down on my haunches,

pushing a blackened stick through

the thin layer of snow covering

last Summer’s fire,

I hear the Pinto, restless behind me,

nervous in the wind moaning softly

through the canebrake.

 

And sifting through the ash, the rocks

burned white, I place sticks together,

lighting a fire, boiling coffee,

looking into the trees as I wait,

the ground glazed with the cold, shiny sun

past noon.

 

                                          2

Last Summer we came here.  To this place.

We rode the river-trail,

following the tree line, cutting across

country the last two miles,

picking our way carefully through

the canebrake, the horses dancing

with each turning leaf.

And it was good here.  Good here

into the evening when we built our fire

and sat together and you asked me

why I’d come here as a boy,

and why I’d brought you here as a man.

And I tried to answer.

And the fire began to ember away.

And the stars glistened against

the rising purple above the hill, even then

morning stalking quietly through the

           dew-green, dark-mist dawning

 

                              3

And the sun dropped slowly out of noon.

And I sat on my haunches

waiting for the wind, again.

Then it was almost dark.

 

I stood, shaking off the stiffness,

dumping the last coffee steaming

into the snow.

“I have no need to stay here,” I said.

“No need to stay here, now,” I said to myself.

It was dark by the time I got back down

off the hill.

The Pinto was tired.  He went easily

into the feed-lot, stamping, moving in among

the other horses.

 

                              4

And I stood with my hands on the gate

for some time, almost hearing the wind

through the canebrake up on the crest.

I stood for some time

watching the Pinto until he settled down.

Then I turned toward the house

and started across the yard, a branch

for the old maple tree

brushing my hat as I passed.

 

Reading From
Winter River
“To An Indian Girl,Waiting”
By Ronald John Vierling