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been all over villages of the hudson to genesee and from the adirondacks south of the st. lawrence to the headwaters of the susquehanna, i've come to the east from the west and middle. there were the great hill people, the hemp gatherers, the goat milkers and those of the granite stone. the hustlers, the shirtless, the halfway house guests. the keeper of the wampum let me in, and the mishtapeuat whispered my vision as i passed on by. the withered raconteur juggled and gestured, stay, stay little lobita, hear my story, share my tobacco and whiskey, listen. i kept on, carrying buckets of rain and postcards, and faces, ego and pain, i kept on, exchanging with the breeze on the mighty water in belfast, words with the ranger, glances with the weavers. there was the logger in the woodlands, and the fly-fisherman on the rio. the great grandmothers, the milliners, the brothers and the worshipers, i kept on. i loved the old storied one, i will forever love the wampum keeper. the faces of the cards in my pocket morphed, swelled, multiplied. it is you i have stopped for, my partner of physical rite, the keeper of my moon, stirrer of the sweet hunny. the carrier of my papoose.