thanks for bringing that
to our attention
she said the first time
to my response to a history text
about a famous painting
of the Battle of Quebec
that never mentioned the French
and only mentioned Indians twice,
once as nuisances, once
as the noble savage
kneeling by the dying
English general
I scratch earth around timpsila
on this hill, while below me,
hanging in still air, a hawk
searches the creekbed for my brothers.
Squat leaves, I’ ll braid your roots
into such long ropes, they’ ll cover
the rump of my stallion.
Withered flower, feed us now
buffalo rot in the waist-high grass.
“It isn’ t a game for girls,”
he said, grabbing a fifth
with his right hand,
the wind with his left.
“For six days
I raced Jack Daniels.
He cheated, told jokes.
Some weren’ t even funny.
That’ s how come he won.
It took a long time
to reach this Yellow River.
I’ m not yet thirty,
Two hundred seventy
Ghost Dancers died dreaming
That humanity would drown
In a flood of White sins.
Then the renewed earth
Would reclaim city and town,
Leaving only Ghost Dancers
And those who lived by nature’ s laws.
History books say the threat is gone.
The Ghost Dance died with the ancestors —
Wovoka and his sacred dream
Were destroyed.
Each time it rains,
I go out to the sidewalk,
Where the tree roots
Have broken the concrete
Listening to the water’ s whispering:
They walk past you
weeping
for the leaves that burnt
& fell, the wood exposed
like bone, sculpture
that suddenly emerges
from white haze.
You old fortune-teller,
you could have told them
in their vibrant grief
From morning’ s mouth
the bones emerge,
a prayer is whispered
over rounded horns;
the prairie is beyond
the quivering hump
and holy smoke sparkles
released in the breath.
Braided sweetgrass,
be about their hooves;
although the grip of hunger
lies heavy on the land,
let endless native grasses grow
among the yellow stones
and between the stars.
Even if only one man had
begun to sing, actually
it was thousands, She who came
to Wisconsin farmers
and transformed their lives,
1.
Snow clouds shadow the bay, on the ice the odd fallen gull.
I try to keep my friend from dying by remembering
his childhood of praise to God, who needs us all. Würzburg:
the grownups are inside saying prayers for the dead,
the children are sent out to play — their laughter
more sacred than prayer. After dark his father
blesses and kisses him Güttenacht. He wakes
to go to school with children who stayed behind
and were murdered before promotion.
Seeing my friend’s son in his broad-brimmed hat
and suspenders, I think of the Quakers
who lectured us on nonviolent social action
every week when I was a child. In the classrooms
we listened to those who would not take up arms,
who objected, who had accepted alternative
service in distant work camps and showed
slides of hospitals they helped to build.
On Wednesdays, in Meeting for Worship,
when someone rose to speak,
all the energy in the room
flew inside her mouth, empowering her to tell
Mistress Adrienne, I have been given a bed with a pink dresser
In the hothouse
Joining the Concord Public Library: the walls and roof are
Glass and my privacy comes from the apple-geraniums,
Violets, ferns, marigolds, and white mayflags.
I get my meals
With the janitor and his wife and all of the books are mine
To use. I scour, sweep, and dust.
I hope you don’t think of me
As a runaway? I remember your kindness,
Your lessons in reading and writing on the piazza.
My journey was unusual. I saw some of the war
for Dave Smith
Our clothes are still wet from wading
The Chickamunga last evening.
There is heavy frost. We have
Walked on the dead all night.
Now in the firelight
We are exchanging shells and grapeshot.
I can still hear our loud huzzah
When late in the day
The enemy fell into full retreat
Along the pine ridge to the east...
We chased them until we were weary.
Each night this week
There’s been something
To keep me from sleep. Just an hour ago
I saw
