Unmarked Caddo Pathways

Milton Jordan

May 4, 2025

Tucked deep into Texas’ northeast corner 

and leaking across an imagined state line,

the bayou backs up among knees and hanging moss

that pulls the lower limbs of the cypress 

toward a narrow strip where a lone bateaux

slips silently through the dark come early

to this unmarked path through forest,

as Amberman pulls his paddle through currents

more noticeable against his stroke feathered

to wrinkle the gray green surface,

an old hand whose hands have worn two smooth 

grips just below the paddle’s knob.

From Milton: “An earlier version of this poem appeared in the chapbook The Amberman Poems, in memory of my father.”

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.