Tag: Mark B. Hamilton

Two Poems by Mark B. Hamilton

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Under a Hazy Sun

Without the sun to lift this dreary weather, we
might lose our confidence in Nature—that faith
that hovers above our human body’s frailty.

Before Mother Earth inspires spring, its wraith 
of furrows will tow us through wending places
but guide our passing, as if a living breath.

In sweat that freezes, I recognize their faces,
these men who heft logs into place. They are bold,
with hearts combining into every crafted brace.

With winter’s numbing cold, they tightly hold
onto hope, and build the frames of solid hearths
from muddy wattle into a chimney’s scaffold.

Their efforts could comprise our only worth,
these huts the tumbled columns of an ending
for this, a story urging outwards towards myth.

To those who seek its truth by the telling
a squared, plumbed measurement does matter
as value and as pleasure expressed in the doing.

At noon I write, as Floyd arrives with a letter
from Lewis who supports McFarland’s intention
in claiming expenses he justly incurred, after

sustaining troops during the Whiskey Rebellion.
I walk up the hill for a meridian with sextant,
for the latitude of our camp under a hazy sun.

Then, I order Shields and Floyd out to hunt
for turkeys roosting above in thickening sleet.
The keelboat needs adjustment of stores in front.

As we wade hip-deep in the ice on freezing feet
for barrels to carry ashore and stack under guard,
we pound the loose pries with mallets to reseat.

Yet the Boat tilts farther, and harder aground,
and there is nothing more we can do or replace.
A frosty mist hinders the work, and has slowed

even the chimney builders, so I have them place
two Commissary horses in taking the load
from men’s shoulders, dragging logs in traces.

With teams, our hauling men now stride the road
enthused with new and more hopeful emotions.
The happy alterations have changed their mode

of work, diminishing fears and predilections
that Old Hermit Winter might not care to flee
the sapling’s leaf, preferring to keep them frozen.

With more horses and eight more men, Drewyer
returns, although none of them are in readiness.
The men stand idle like rotted poteaux-en-terre,

as a wall without apparent worthiness.
I send for another team of horses and for corn
and turnips from Griffeth’s farm, when a witness

from past campaigns does visit me this morn—
a Delaware Chief of the Greenfield Treaty
which ceded much land. Our greeting is sworn

in remembrance, and we talk with whiskey,
a bottle which he declares is good. At best,
this welcome has stayed the raw weather, as we
huddle in huts with his Indian words, and rest.

“Under a Hazy Sun” is an original history-based poem adapted from: Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Volume 2, (University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 134-40.


Fresh Venison

A boon! The hunters hang the air with deer
recovered, swinging frozen, the blind fetch
made easy since far off it’s crows we hear
around those heaps of guts in a snowy ditch,
like a wallow of blood. While Drewyer again
hangs three more, plus turkeys at the fork,
a fourth is added by his Indian. The other men,
who lately arrived, have now begun to work—
to set a roof upon their hut without more loss
of my good opinion, which does mend. To folks
in the country, I send Shields paddling across
for butter, where he does well to avoid a soak
from pirogues trading south toward St. Louis.
A Frenchman, stops to visit, and confides in me
that several good voyageurs wish to join us,
as engages who know well the lower Missouri,
but he holds a strong concern for retaliation
from the Spanish Commandant, as his authority
remains absolute. I talk of our new possession
of Upper Louisiana, promising to pay a fee
for their knowledge, come spring to the Ocean.

“Fresh Venison” is an original history-based poem adapted from: Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Volume 2, (University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 140-41.




Mark B. Hamilton works in diachronic forms to transform content. Along with his scholarly expertise in the era of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1803-1806, he has traced their entire route on their approximate time-table, traveling as they did by paddle and pack mule—a 3-year, 8,000 mile journey. A forthcoming volume of traditional verse, 1803: The Wintering, won First Honorable Mention for the Donna Wolf-Palacio Poetry Prize. Based upon the journals of Captain William Clark while at Camp Dubois, during the winter of 1803, this book will be available from Finishing Line Press in January 2026.

Two Poems by Mark B. Hamilton

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Work Days*

Four details under command,
sentries posted and hidden
near fellers, haulers, and carpenters,
protecting the wattling men.

Trees slash through breezes,
their branches trimmed and begun.
In warmth, our breath has a gill
poured now-and-again.

Those who favor chunking wood
have their own hand-hewn tools
in constant motion wearing smooth,
while the lazy ones act the fools.

With hide buckets full of mud,
leaves and twigs for wattle,
one man inside, one man out,
both chinking on one bottle.

Logs are notched and placed,
oxen shaking their coats,
the goods and blankets drying out
as Floyd tallies up the Boat.

Willard and Roberson return
with letters from St. Louis,
sharing news of wooden walks
and women sightings to remind us.

They help to stow the heavy stores
neatly in good order, amusing us all
with stories of excess to please us,
while stretching them up real tall.

The ice builds. We caulk and trim.
Whitehouse and York apace,
two sawyers with a saw that sings
back and forth in place.

Winds do give, then take away
that bee-sweet scent of resin,
from seasoned arms a tug-of-war
between them both can win.

Repeating a task is never easy,
to relax your strength until
a calming frees the bind—a pace
is best that ends in skill.

* An original history-based poem adapted from: Gary E. Moulton, editor, The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Volume 2, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), ibid, 141-42.
“Work Days” previously appeared in Plainsongs.


Camp & Mess

The palisades of oak would cast their shade
inside the fort, until the sun had risen
to form a space of heated mud that made
our work unpleasant. In short, it was an oven.
Our endless constant chores caused little pride,
the continual supervision was an irritation
unless scrubbing a kettle, or stretching a hide
was one’s cherished idea of an army ambition.
Yet everyday, a lucky man was reassigned
to work outside the gate. His replacement
would grouse, argue and bray, only to find
that barracks duty was not a personal affront.
The work was for the common good, and central
to our health—as necessary as salting a barrel.

“Camp & Mess” previously appeared in The Lyric.




Mark B. Hamilton (MFA, University of Montana) works in diachronic forms to transform content, adapting from both Eastern and Western traditions.

His poems appear widely in the US, and sometimes abroad: e.g., The Lyric Magazine, Naugatuck River Review, About Place Journal, Oxford Poetry, and Stand Magazine. Recent ecopoetry volumes include: LAKE, RIVER, MOUNTAIN (Cornerstone Press, University of Wisconsin, 2024), the chapbook UPSTREAM (Finishing Line Press, 2024), and the book OYO: The Beautiful River (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2020).

As a scholar of pre-industrial America, his researched essays have been published in: The Heritage of the Great Plains, The Bulletin of the Chicago Society of Herpetology, We Proceeded On, and History Magazine, with inclusion into the Folk Life Archives, US Library of Congress. For additional information about the author, visit:  MarkBHamilton.WordPress.com.

“Ancient Mounds” by Mark B. Hamilton

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Collins had found the hog, butchered and hung,
so we left early that morning with our rifles slung
to hunt the prairie fowl with shot, and to explore
Dubois River, hoping our slow and stealthy tour
might surprise a bear at dinner. Approaching near
we fell into a stalk, beneath the rise only to hear
loud caws from the carcass speckled with crows
having devoured the shreds to bone. Above the snow
all was ears, a mask attached to a spine, the thin
shadow of corpse hanging in the wind to spin
its yarn of dying for some hungry farmer’s larder.
So we kept our hunt southeastward, a bit farther
from the bottoms where we spotted prairie fowl
on roosting branches, like silhouettes for owl
as we fired one-by-one taking several, and more
at the foot of berry bushes, until we both wore
the grouse as Indians might wear feathered capes.
Continuing our trek toward some distant shapes
we imagined to be a group of ancient mounds,
the expanse in front was wide and not a sound
was heard as we approached in their field of fire.
Without the ice underfoot an attack would mire
down and deepen into failure, yet we strode in
across that level surface of the pond, frozen
enough to get us committed far into the middle.
Then, at 100 yards, all broke loose into a riddle
of children singing “fat piggies,” we in the moat
up to our thighs, rifles held high, unable to shoot.
The ancients knew well a defense against infantry
building on ground to weaken the attacking enemy.
We had to back out, and come far around south,
staying in the prairie stubble, out of the mouth
of that big frog, to approach their fortification
of 9 mounds in a round—a haven of protection,
an Indian fortress once encircled by a palisade
with whistling wings of two more mounds made
7 feet above the prairie. All were scattered with flint
and earthen ware. An entire safe and dry settlement
below a clearing sky. Northward an immense grave,
a Cahokian woodhenge, had once risen up to save
their loved ones by the sacred motion of the sun.
Returning at sunset, I found my feet well frozen
inside my shoes. My slave rubbed them with snow
and wrapped them both, and set them gently low
on the hearth, slowly to prevent the frost bite.
With westerly winds exceedingly cold that night
York brought firewood and plucked two hens.
“This ‘ill help, Massa. With good luck, and then
hot broth and God ta’ thaw out your feet again.”

History-based verse from: The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Vol. 2, “Wintering at Camp Dubois.” Moulton, Gary E., editor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1986: 153-54. (Previously published in About Place Journal)




Mark B. Hamilton is an environmental neo-structuralist, working in forms to transform content, adapting from both the Eastern and Western traditions. His second eco-poetry volume, OYO, The Beautiful River (Shanti Arts, 2020) explores the reciprocity between self, history, and the contemporary environment of the polluted Ohio River.  A third book, Lake, River, Mountain, is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin, Cornerstone Press, 2023, and a third chapbook, UPSTREAM, will be published by Finishing Line Press, 2024. His recent work has appeared in such journals as: Blue Unicorn, Albatross, and History Magazine, as well as abroad in Urthona Journal, Amethyst Review, and Stand Magazine, UK. Find more of his work at MarkBHamilton.Wordpress.com.

Two Poems by Mark B. Hamilton

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Unwell

Thick sheets of ice have moved the dark.
I am unwell from yesterday’s ducking.
J. Fields did return, after some risk,
having made his way across the flowing

to report that people do favor
recent surveys by Captain Mackay
of those granted lands told to comprise
a beautiful and bountiful country.

Yet I remain unwell. All day, indisposed.
McNeal and Ordway were lost all night,
the Missouri impassable in thick slabs
like shuffling like cards — a forceful sight.

My servant has kept the fire so hot
the chimney wattle has caught aflame.
I step out to take a meridian altitude
while men pour water into the frame.

Rivers continue to rise. N. Pryor
arrives from Cahokia with letters.
Our Boat, afloat again, in perfect order.
Although I slept but little, I feel better.

With evening rains, all is dry and tight.
Huddling, we cook the rabbits at mess,
the Mississippi still stoppered with ice
but the warming stew a good success.


Still Very Unwell

Today is warm, but I am unwell this mile.
In cold and frost on Mister Hays’ horse,
I have accompanied the gentlemen for awhile
but now return early as I am feeling worse.

The thaw was fair, but winds have increased.
I take doses of medicine, yet remain sick all day.
To Leakens, a thief, who must be discharged
from our Party, I give a small correction of pay.

The wilding wings of fowl pass briefly overhead,
yet I remain unwell. Dubois River is fastly rising,
sufficiently so the Boat leaves its pries, in stead
taken up creek, all though the day is warming.

A map of lines must inhabit those feathery brains.
York attends and keeps the fire, and Mr. Hanley
sends butter and milk in a wagon of Mr. Koehn’s
whose wife asks if she might better comfort me.

Those gliding wings must be the soul. I am sick.
Captain Lewis sends out Shields for walnut bark.
Winser kills a badger. The ice is 11 inches thick.
The rising river has washed away my water mark.

The whistling swans in silence pass like a dream.
The walnut pills do take effect, and I feel better.
A lost Maumee canoe drifts alone downstream,
and news is delivered from Mr. Hay by messenger.

Two invitations have arrived for Balls at St. Louis.
The Missouri River is spewing a slushy reef
in muddy floes to form its half frozen surface.
The geese and swans do gather in a marshy sheaf.


“Unwell” and “Still Very Unwell” are history-based poems, adapted from “Wintering at Camp Dubois,” Vol. 2, The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Gary E. Moulton, editor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.




Mark B. Hamilton considers himself an environmental neo-structuralist, working in forms to transform content, adapting from both the Eastern and Western traditions. His new eco-poetry volume, OYO, The Beautiful River: an environmental narrative in two parts (Shanti Arts, 2020), explores the reciprocity between self, culture, history, and the contemporary environment of the polluted Ohio River. Recent work has appeared in Weber—The Contemporary West, North Dakota Quarterly, Copperfield Quarterly Review, Third Wednesday, and Naugatuck River Review, as well as abroad in Oxford Poetry, and Stand Magazine, UK. You can find him at: www.MarkBHamilton.WordPress.com

“Potatoes, Brandy and Porter” by Mark B. Hamilton

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Last night, all the porter froze
and several bottles broke.
The men now stack them exposed,
thawing the bitter beer that folk
favor as brewed from charred malt.
Quite good with apples and salt.

Visitors arrive with a warming sky:
3 Frenchmen from Portage des Sioux
with potatoes, fowl, meal and brandy
and women who sell breads, and sew.
The scene widens, the trading slows.
Exchanges become people we know.

The Captain delivers new canisters
of powder, then walks to the hill
with sextant, giving flints to hunters,
and swings the sun’s image until
reflected it sits on the mirror’s line,
the horizon more precisely defined.

He notes our position. He calculates
in time, and draws from tables in a book
the instrument’s angle, which takes
in plenty of columns when we look,
yet do not stay when he commences.
We go outside to replenish our senses.

The sun always shows us where we are.
It rises without the need for a bobble
of fine brass knobs that measure so far
the steed only Captain Clark can hobble.
Later, from Cahokia, the express returns.
In a letter from Captain Lewis we learn

he will arrive tomorrow. There being
more letters from Kentucky, and 8 cork
bottles of wine, and files for sharpening,
the Sergeant directs us back to work.
Captain Clark has received a soft, tough
durant, a felted cloth to wrap his cough.


Historical adaptation from “Wintering at Camp Dubois,” Vol. 2, pp. 166-167, The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. Poem first published in Weber–The Contemporary West, Spring 2020.




Mark B. Hamilton considers himself an environmental neostructuralist, working in forms to transform content, adapting from both the Eastern and Western traditions. A new eco-poetry volume, OYO, The Beautiful River: an environmental narrative in two parts, has been released by Shanti Arts, 2020. Recent poems have appeared in Weber—The Contemporary West, North Dakota Quarterly, Chrysanthemum, The Cider Press Review, and Naugatuck River Review, as well as abroad in Oxford Poetry, and Stand Magazine, UK. Please see: www.MarkBHamilton.WordPress.com