Southward

Baker Brownell

Forbidden Mexico
Four hundred yards away—
A drunken, tawny beast—
Slept across the southward path.
“There shall no soldier go,”
The order was, “beyond
The murky middle of the stream.”

Forbidden Mexico!—
Its drifting slopes
Slid back into sun-hid distance.
Its tawny skin, sleek
With clean aridity,
Lay unpunctured by man’s growth.
Four hundred yards away—
A thousand years could sink
Into the gap between this river-bank and that.