At a quite wonderful dance performance I remarked that the title of one of the musical numbers, Filii Neidhardti, was undoubtedly a reference to the Poet Laureate of the State of Nebraska, who acted as scribe to Nicholas Black Elk, producing thereby a text which endears itself to all who feel nostalgia for the earth religions. The music sounded more Celtic than anything else, which I attributed to the generic neo-Pagan sensibility, which may be so. The allusion, I now realize, was to the Medieval German poet Neidhardt (with a "d" in the middle as well as at the end) von Reuenthal, some of whose songs I have on an old German vinyl in a part of the apartment I can't get to.

Emerging from the Vale of Remorse (Reuenthal), I post something from John Gneisenau Neihardt (with one "d"). This is in keeping with my earlier postings of verse which may not be entirely great, but which deserves to be remembered, and which suits a mood I ascribe to this little Tribe .

When I Have Gone Weird Ways
John G. Neihardt

When I have finished with this episode,
Left the hard, uphill road,
And gone weird ways to seek another load,
Oh, friends, regret me not, nor weep for me,
Child of Infinity!

Nor dig a grave, nor rear for me a tomb
To say with lying writ: “Here in the gloom
He who loved bigness takes a narrow room,
Content to pillow here his weary head,
For he is dead.”

But give my body to the funeral pyre,
And bid the laughing fire,
Eager and strong and swift, like my desire,
Scatter my subtle essence into space,
Free me of time and place.

And sweep the bitter ashes from the hearth,
Fling back the dust I borrowed from the earth
Into the chemic broil of death and birth,
The vast alembic of the cryptic scheme,
Warm with the master-dream.

And thus, O little house that sheltered me,
Dissolve again in wind and rain, to be
Part of the cosmic weird economy.
And, Oh, how oft with new life shalt thou lift
Out of the atom-drift!