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Column 893

Leaving Bents Fort

05.02.2022

In Leav­ing Bents Fort”, Lance Hen­son wres­tles deeply with the mean­ing of being a Cheyenne in Amer­i­ca — a mean­ing that is as com­plex his­tor­i­cal­ly as it is in the present and towards the future. The names of the indige­nous Amer­i­cans, the fierce and hero­ic Cheyenne war­riors, Roman Nose and Two Moon (a spir­i­tu­al chief leader), are set against the name of a fort built in south­ern Col­orado, named for white traders, Charles and William Bent, as the sin­gu­lar out­post estab­lished to exe­cute a bru­tal war against the Cheyenne. In his truck, Hen­son tra­vers­es the present land­scape that is ancient as his her­itage. Henson’s con­fes­sion that he is bare­ly in Amer­i­ca” is iron­ic. He is in and out­side of Amer­i­ca, for Amer­i­ca must always con­tend with its trou­bled gen­e­sis and inven­tion, one that, for this Cheyenne, invokes the ten­sion between rage and freedom”.

Leaving Bents Fort

Leaving bents fort
For Floyd bringing good

Riding the high plains from Colorado
To Kansas

A whirlwind gaunt and alone crosses the landscape

I drive the truck south toward Oklahoma
Crossing the same path two moon and roman nose
Once wandered

I am on the edge

Barely in America

Somewhere between rage and freedom…

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2021 by Lance Henson, “Leaving Bents Fortfrom The Antonym, October 23, 2021. Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.