Jake Adam York

Colorado poet, writer, and editor Jake Adam York (1972-2012) was represented on this site and his information has been left up as testimonial to his life and work.

Jake Adam York

York

— “here all the party of Sergt. Pryors joined us except my man York, who had stopped to rite his load and missed his way”

— William Clark, 7 Dec 1805

 

So different with this name,

before, tied to them who depended

on your skill, your speed

through prairie-grass, your eye

for foot and trail

(passed down

from the first to skip domain

and lead a tracker deeper

into losing you, reading land

as you, then someone else,

drawing what you needed

then against your need)

so acute

at first they might have thought

you inhuman, then human, more,

the wood-sense you had

by your hands they should have kissed

and did at last by taking all the bands

they could – already slipping them

in the high, blue grasses of the mountains

like water in a dry country, leaving

the marks of leaving marks behind

so good it seemed you were moving

north and west.

I wish

I had your journals,

that I could read

and follow what I cannot see

up this rock, this trail

into that blank

beyond what anyone could name.

 

originally appeared in South Dakota Review