On May 13, 1804, Lewis and Clark’s expedition set out prepared (read: worried) from St. Louis: “Boats and everything Complete, with the necessary stores of provisions & such articles of merchandize as we thought ourselves authorised to procure–tho’ not as much as I think nessy. for the multitude of Inds. thro which we must pass on our road across the Continent”. Clark was worrisome. His Lewis was yet tending some final diplomatic business, and they would have to convene up river a bit in a few days. Captaining the beginning alone, Clark was careful to situate his troop of pirogues on an island mid-river.
This situating your boats on an island mid-river, the mere eight miles from a major city–is this excessive early caution, so as to prepare a habit for regarding the less neighborly inhabitants ahead? Is this common practice of the time? Are we always warrior-minded as people, as this, as always noticing the highest ground, an island in the river being the ultimate?
I suppose I’m saying: When I grew up thinking about frontiersmen in frontiersmenland, I pictured Davy Crockett-hatted men marching their scatter-wide stand through some thick wood;–not this portrait of weapon-concealed merchants. Though at the first two entries in The Journals of Lewis and Clark (complete and free, online by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln at lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu), I see that expedition is most graceful when it is more of wide-circular inhale and seeping exhale: I mean, cautious. None of this is to speak of their duty. None of this is to speak of the dignity and compassion. Not purpose, just a disposition, a measure of some reason, an entry.
But at outsets–onsets?–of worthy things, I should like to think it not bad to be a bit more circular and seeping. See, how to set out scares the hell, as it should. I mean, of course, to relate this to writing poetry.
Speculating?–(Latin speculatus, past participle of speculari to spy out, examine, from specula lookout post, from specere to look, look at–. Date: 1599.)
Or prospecting?–if this dazzle of Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” is prospecting. Ah! to be the man in search of a name, no? For this, to throw caution away.
So, if by the way of outset, then how: the right and bold, or the right and gentle?