Geronimo  

The frontier closed on September 4, 1886. 

The dry autumn wind  

whistled over the cracked skin of Geronimo,

howling like spirits  

exorcised from the land.  

In Skeleton Canyon  

General Miles rode up to meet him,

flanked by ranks of thundering blue.

Their steel and brass buttons  

glinted in the Arizona sun.  

The last outlaw lowered his rifle  

into the parched earth  

that had been pierced by the plow, 

and carved by roads  

that lengthened ever westward.  

The buffalo hooves that resounded

to the clouds like artillery  

over the buckling plains  

had been replaced  

by the cavalry closing in.  

Here ended the apocalypse that Cortez began, 

whose piercing eyes spied gold for Spain. 

The old world had been harried west

as steadily as the sun,  

and now rests behind the western sea.