MANIFESTATION WOLVERINE

THE COLLECTED POETRY OF RAY YOUNG BEAR

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note

WINTER OF THE SALAMANDER

1 because the blue rain exists

grandmother

painted visions

four songs of life

catching the distance

the clouds threw this light

doors

rushing

these horses came

mix these eyes

between his fingers

war walking near

seeing at night

one chip of human bone

morning-water train woman

the sun and the morning

oasis

birds with tears in their bones

parts: my grandfathers walked speaking 1970

signs

like a coiled wire

two times

poem for viet nam

wooden men

coming back home

santa ana winds

to remember the smallest

morning talking mother

usage

trains made of stone

the otter swims on to others

2 when we assume life will go well for us

four poems

the crow children walk my circles in the snow

the woman’s vision

the way the bird sat

the cook

the seal

the winter’s heart

in dream: the privacy of sequence

her husband

another face

waiting to be fed

spearfishermen

star blanket

the place of l

the place of m

celebration

this house

in missing

from his dream

the last dream

winter of the salamander

3 in the brilliance of the summer daylight

in the first place of my life

a woman’s name

before leaving me, the poem: eagle butte and black river falls

the spider: a naked body in the summer

all day i have seen you

july twenty-six/1975

the characters of our addiction

memories for no one

the moon and the stars, the stone and the fire

they ask for recognition

in disgust and in response to indian-type poetry written by whites published in a mag which keeps rejecting me

we are darkness itself

4 the sound he makes—the sound i hear

it seems as if we are so far apart

i touch a gentle deer

a pool of water, a reflection of a summer

in viewpoint: poem for 14 catfish and the town of tama, iowa

it is the fish-faced boy who struggles

in each of us

no one can deny the strong force

the birds are housed in a small glass house

i can still picture the caribou

after the fourth autumn

for the rain in march: the blackened hearts of herons

march twenty-eight/1977

poem one

having dragged the shell of my house

poem for november

poem for december

poem two/rainbow

three reasons for transgression: the fierce head of the eagle, the otter, and the daylight

from morning star press and other letters: 1978

march eight/1979

THE INVISIBLE MUSICIAN

The Significance of a Water Animal

The Personification of a Name

The Language of Weather

The Last Time They Were Here

The Reason Why I Am Afraid Even Though I Am a Fisherman

The Song Taught to Joseph

From the Spotted Night

All Star’s Thanksgiving

Eagle Crossing, July 1975

Three Poems

Meskwaki Love Song

Emily Dickinson, Bismarck and the Roadrunner’s Inquiry

The Suit of a Hand

The King Cobra as Political Assassin

A Drive to Lone Ranger

The First Dimension of Skunk

Meskwaki Tribal Celebration Songs

We ta se Na ka mo ni, Viet Nam Memorial

Race of the Kingfishers: In Nuclear Winter

Nothing Could Take Away the Bear-King’s Image

Nineteen Eighty Three

Cool Places of Transformation

Three Views of a Northern Pike

Debut of the Woodland Drum

A Woman’s Name is in the Second Verse: Earthquakes and Parallels

Meskwaki Love Song

Green Threatening Clouds

My Grandmother’s Words (and Mine) on the Last Spring Blizzard

If the Word for Whale is Right

Three Translated Poems for October

Journal Entry, November 12, 1960

The Black Antelope Tine

Quail and His Role in Agriculture

Colleen’s Faith

Fred Bloodclot Red’s Composition: For Use on the Third Night of Footsteps

Always is He Criticized

The Handcuff Symbol

The Dream of Purple Birds in Marshall, Washington

Two Poems for Southeastern Washington

Fox Guides From La Crosse On

Shadows of Clouds

Meskwaki Love Song

Notes to The Invisible Musician

THE ROCK ISLAND HIKING CLUB

The Rock Island Hiking Club

Our Bird Aegis

American Flag Dress

The Aura of the Blue Flower That Is a Goddess

Father Scarmark—World War I Hero—and Democracy

The Reptile Decree from Paris

January Gifts from the Ground Squirrel Entity

The Mask of Four Indistinguishable Thunderstorms

Summer Tripe Dreams and Concrete Leaves

Eagle Feathers in Colour Photocopy

The Bread Factory

A Season of Provocations and Other Ethnic Dreams

For Lazy-Boys, Devoted Pets, Health, and Tribal Homeland Reality, or How We Are Each a Lone Hovercraft

Poems for Dreams and Underwater Portals

November 12, 1951

Improvised Sealant for Hissing Wounds

An Act of Purification, No. 1

Four Poems for Immediacy

Crestwood School of Social Research

Dish Shapes and Remnant Pools

In the Tree’s Shadow

Moon-like Craters on My Legs

Laramie’s Peripheral Vision

MANIFESTATION WOLVERINE

Four Hinterland Abstractions

From the Landscape: A Superimposition

Kamden Quadrangle

The Lone Swimmer of Henry County, Virginia

Ni ta na to ta-Ma ni-E ye-Me kwi te e ya ni, I Will Talk About This While I Still Remember

For Lady Z Before She Became a Terrorist

Somewhere, New Mexico*

The Three Brothers, 1999

Driftwood Over My Heart*

The Last Day Geese Drones Circled Home

The Rock’s Message*

Ultrasound, The Missing, Down Under

A Life-shaping Spoon

She Said I Know More Than Your Kids and Grandkids

The Lonely Crickets Theatre

For You, A Handful of the Greatest Gift

Footprints Made of Snow

Gate 632

Obvious for Stars Only

Retorna Me … Cara Mia Ti Amo

Nye wi Mamitti Nakamonani, Four Peyote Songs, ca. 1930

Contemporary Meskwaki Social Dance Songs

Notes to “Four Hinterland Abstractions”

Notes to “Contemporary Meskwaki Social Dance Songs”

Acknowledgments

About the Author

*concrete poem

Akwi ma - na ta wi - a sa mike

ko- i na tti mo ya ni ni - ayo

tte ski-ne ko kwe te bya i ki

There are no elucidations or foresights here

merely experiments with words

Publisher’s Note

Long before they were ever written down, poems were organized in lines. Since the invention of the printing press, readers have become increasingly conscious of looking at poems, rather than hearing them, but the function of the poetic line remains primarily sonic. Whether a poem is written in meter or in free verse, the lines introduce some kind of pattern into the ongoing syntax of the poem’s sentences; the lines make us experience those sentences differently. Reading a prose poem, we feel the strategic absence of line.

But precisely because we’ve become so used to looking at poems, the function of line can be hard to describe. As James Longenbach writes in The Art of the Poetic Line, “Line has no identity except in relation to other elements in the poem, especially the syntax of the poem’s sentences. It is not an abstract concept, and its qualities cannot be described generally or schematically. It cannot be associated reliably with the way we speak or breathe. Nor can its function be understood merely from its visual appearance on the page.” Printed books altered our relationship to poetry by allowing us to see the lines more readily. What new challenges do electronic reading devices pose?

In a printed book, the width of the page and the size of the type are fixed. Usually, because the page is wide enough and the type small enough, a line of poetry fits comfortably on the page: What you see is what you’re supposed to hear as a unit of sound. Sometimes, however, a long line may exceed the width of the page; the line continues, indented just below the beginning of the line. Readers of printed books have become accustomed to this convention, even if it may on some occasions seem ambiguous—particularly when some of the lines of a poem are already indented from the left-hand margin of the page.

But unlike a printed book, which is stable, an ebook is a shape-shifter. Electronic type may be reflowed across a galaxy of applications and interfaces, across a variety of screens, from phone to tablet to computer. And because the reader of an ebook is empowered to change the size of the type, a poem’s original lineation may seem to be altered in many different ways. As the size of the type increases, the likelihood of any given line running over increases.

Our typesetting standard for poetry is designed to register that when a line of poetry exceeds the width of the screen, the resulting run-over line should be indented, as it might be in a printed book. Take a look at John Ashbery’s “Disclaimer” as it appears in two different type sizes.

Each of these versions of the poem has the same number of lines: the number that Ashbery intended. But if you look at the second, third, and fifth lines of the second stanza in the right-hand version of “Disclaimer,” you’ll see the automatic indent; in the fifth line, for instance, the word ahead drops down and is indented. The automatic indent not only makes poems easier to read electronically; it also helps to retain the rhythmic shape of the line—the unit of sound—as the poet intended it. And to preserve the integrity of the line, words are never broken or hyphenated when the line must run over. Reading “Disclaimer” on the screen, you can be sure that the phrase “you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn ahead” is a complete line, while the phrase “you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn” is not.

Open Road has adopted an electronic typesetting standard for poetry that ensures the clearest possible marking of both line breaks and stanza breaks, while at the same time handling the built-in function for resizing and reflowing text that all ereading devices possess. The first step is the appropriate semantic markup of the text, in which the formal elements distinguishing a poem, including lines, stanzas, and degrees of indentation, are tagged. Next, a style sheet that reads these tags must be designed, so that the formal elements of the poems are always displayed consistently. For instance, the style sheet reads the tags marking lines that the author himself has indented; should that indented line exceed the character capacity of a screen, the run-over part of the line will be indented further, and all such runovers will look the same. This combination of appropriate coding choices and style sheets makes it easy to display poems with complex indentations, no matter if the lines are metered or free, end-stopped or enjambed.

Ultimately, there may be no way to account for every single variation in the way in which the lines of a poem are disposed visually on an electronic reading device, just as rare variations may challenge the conventions of the printed page, but with rigorous quality assessment and scrupulous proofreading, nearly every poem can be set electronically in accordance with its author’s intention. And in some regards, electronic typesetting increases our capacity to transcribe a poem accurately: In a printed book, there may be no way to distinguish a stanza break from a page break, but with an ereader, one has only to resize the text in question to discover if a break at the bottom of a page is intentional or accidental.

Our goal in bringing out poetry in fully reflowable digital editions is to honor the sanctity of line and stanza as meticulously as possible—to allow readers to feel assured that the way the lines appear on the screen is an accurate embodiment of the way the author wants the lines to sound. Ever since poems began to be written down, the manner in which they ought to be written down has seemed equivocal; ambiguities have always resulted. By taking advantage of the technologies available in our time, our goal is to deliver the most satisfying reading experience possible.

1

BECAUSE THE BLUE RAIN EXISTS

if i were to see

her shape from a mile away

i’d know so quickly

that it would be her.

the purple scarf

and the plastic

shopping bag.

if i felt

hands on my head

i’d know that those

were her hands

warm and damp

with the smell

of roots.

if i heard

a voice

coming from

a rock

i’d know

and her words

would flow inside me

like the light

of someone

stirring ashes

from a sleeping fire

at night.

faraway trains ring the existence of time.

inside the cold end of a small rainbow

we stood like lonely eagles

huddled against each other,

wishing to ourselves a gentle warm stove,

images of our participation

within the human world.

all of us, standing in a cluttered room,

standing away from the sound of our talons

scraping the frost from the earth.

we turned to the people and mumbled

something about the little girl

who said she could hold her breath

forever and that she knew the very thoughts

of a blackbird with dreams of the day

it will skiprope on a sidewalk.

once those years of sharp rivers

took me to a place of caged bears

who sang an endless song to us about

the blank shield without our painted

visions.

wear what you are to us

through a safety pin over your heart.

the bitter knife will recede.

in the brilliance of summer:

the earth performs its life and death.

the house stands unpainted.

we stand on the bridge

made by the gods of the cold rock,

the cold underwater.

we regather a lost rainbow.

we walk somewhere near the lightning

and our hearts imagine themselves

as fire-burnt cottonwood trees.

to the north beyond the wall

of this room, a purple night-fire

burns in glory and our ignorance feeds it,

sustains it.

i grow back into a child.

i cannot name the people around me.

the differences in our life.

the things which keep us in circles.

broken pieces which once belonged

to us.

1)   a young man

the blue rain

quiet in feelings

losing

nothing—showing no one

that i am cold

in this earth

singing

different songs

i never heard

from the same people

unable

to create or remember

their own

songs to keep

2)   an old man

i sang

to the warm sun

and cold moon

this morning

and offered

myself

to the land

and gods

for them

to

teach

me

the old

hard tests of living

all over again

3)   this one

i remember well

my people’s

songs.

i will not

reveal to anyone

that i know

these songs.

it was intended

for me

to keep

them

in secrecy

for they are now

mine to die with

me.

4)   the fourth

a time

in sadness

within the night

holding me

and comforting me.

here i am

being

taught

to be

a man

with life

and old sacred

songs to guide me alone

and love me

forever.

she closes her eyes for time

and the land, slender with meanings.

with the razor flicking above her arm,

she said, the blood will come out

through these holes. it will be

dark blood. its color will lift

as i inhale through this horn.

i went outside with my tooth

clutched inside my hand.

i thought to myself:

she will be well.

last night these skies

were filled with light

and it felt as if i was

just learning how to walk.

the earth seemed off-balance.

i followed a silver streaking star

until it exploded.

i felt comfortable

seeing the glint from my teeth

come back to me

before it rested to the north.

and from the bottom

of a kettle my grandmother

tipped over, small fiery sparks

representing a battle between humans somewhere,

raced back and forth. even after she had gone

into the house with the cooked food,

i was still kneeling over the black kettle.

i imagined some sparks coming out

and dragging away the dead.

i was called to eat.

my mother sat on the bed

with her bare back towards me.

the powdery medicine rolled itself

into the blood over her wounds.

there are plants breathing wisdom,

offered by earth, blooming on this land.

no one will give the time to learn.

i see myself as a snowy haze,

drifting slightly, turning around

always wanting to remember more.

sometimes it is clear and the wind

brings to my hand, many choices.

as a child, colored ribbons held me still

and smoke brought the day through

the longhouse. thunder and lightning

made some of us cringe under the tables.

years later, i stood under its black sky,

asking the creators of this world to forgive

my carelessness. i kept on dreaming night

after night that all i heard was the rumble.

the kettle still sways on fire

bringing my fears to a small comfort

for i can wait until this part of me

is over. i know there is a reason

to why tomorrow will come.

when it comes, there will be no need

to speak of parts.

these horses were tainted and yellow

when dawn first brought the cold,

making my breathing like

an old man’s, cautiously

coming through a blanket

soaked with tiny red suns.

last-night-rains came to

a black whisper, wove its tail,

and moved after my grandfathers,

still smoking the offer i gave

while they were here.

the clouds threw this light

into the horses and they were revived

by the rumbling in their bones.

i stand cradling my rifle and

notice the day humming, swinging

my little sisters to sleep,

back and forth inside the old house.

all they say he saw was

his younger brother’s silhouette

trying to enter their sanctuary.

if it had been otherwise

people would have been permitted

to live endlessly.

for four days the younger

asked to be received

cried

he was alive and not evil.

the door never opened

to which he died and was taken

elsewhere.

it is wrong to speak out loud

of the older who did not accept the offer

for he is the one i say my life to.…

yellow november

comes swaying.

i feel the hooded man

drawing move on my friend’s

back. in his brother

i see his face. black

pellets drop to the floor.

we had seen its flood.

the time we lied about

the stone and how it

was supposed to have hummed

away from his head.

his lungs are now full with

the rush of his bundledup

life. bits of bread,

pie and cake are placed

in a dish. i smoke a

cigarette for him

and bury his clothes

on a hillside where

once a fox ran beside us.

his furry hands over his eyes.

i can still see the shovel.

the thought of a shotgun.

i heard that in the night

a deer whistled out his name

from a cornfield and gave

him its antlers spreading

his thoughts through

the passive quails.

years later, as i warmed

the shadow inside my coat

over the stove, my mother

announced she had found

a spring and she brought

the first taste to everyone

who was there. in some mornings

as icy as it was, i washed my face

in it, sometimes thinking

of the hooded man and the fox,

the rushing sounds of a river

under our house.

1.

from inside the bird a dream hums itself out and turns

into a layer of wind rushing over my face that needs

a small feather from the badger’s nose to blow away

and create corners where i will stand and think

myself into hard ways.

2.

these horses came on light grey clouds

and carried off the barbed wire fence-post.

i am thinking about a divided bird

divided into four equal pieces.

the snow falls over the thoughts of each man.

in their stomachs the winter begins.

3.

the railroad tracks steal a distance

and the crows fly off chipping memory

from their wings. in my eye there are words

and i am reminded of a story i once fell

asleep to.

i aim my rifle at the sun and ask:

are you really afraid of children?

whenever it came that close

i never sheltered myself

from the sad

moving with the woman-horses

recalling those grassy hills

where sometimes

a day or night would lose

tiny wet children

and then taking

whatever appeared as a feeling

to a nearby stream and drinking

their reflections to forget

the spin inside old soft eyes

the constant sorrow of her mind

of grown sons and growing grandchildren

the wooden casings of three

curled tip philippine knives

when your eyes turn down

i go back

remembering how often

the number of days

my arms folded to the table

and my head how it disengaged

from me decided to close the doors

from long days

whenever it came that close

the bundled hair and the braided corn

came talking in unison

one time of the two brothers

who held the sun on its crossing

how one cried after

he witnessed a fish-spear slice

through an eyeball

i wish i was the air under the ice

children sleep on the floor

we can hear the whistling

of their wooden ribs

we knew the badgers and the foxes

were something more: they stood

on the other side carving the trees

into simple wooden bowls filled with hearts

divided as bear thunder eagle fox fish

and wolf

before we appeared fitting ourselves

into them

selected women and their children

went over the hills to pick

berries to be consumed sacredly.

i sat inhaling the smoky protection

coming through the ground

rather than the coarse wood.

yellow horses waited discerningly

against the oncoming day

speaking of the stillness

which followed their decisions

and ours.

he took a knife, cast it to the air

and said: seek a tree

from it whittle a stick

find this one and make a hole

between all his fingers

drive the sharpened stick

its length and then bring it

back and tell me if the corn

he has planted will grow

to be used.

the river stood behind the sun

and passed to the sun a small speckle.

the sun took this gift

and soon understood its meaning.

in respect, the sun combed his hair

but in the morning

he opened his bag where

he kept things that were given to him.

things he did not trust.

it was windy that day and spider webs

were in the air offering rides to the river.

death designs swirl high above faces that are of disbelief.

a captured people dressed in red hold hands and hum

to themselves a strange song.

brown rain slips fast into a sad freedom

low in the thoughts of the old man

who visioned the coming revolution.

he tells to his reflection a small word

not to reveal that in the night

he controls the night enemy

night-enemy-who-takes-us-with-magic-medicine.

he heard the eagle with eyes of war walking near.

they say the spring air comes without much intention.

say these are the ones seeing only at night.

if the standing place emanates cold

enemy sent wings flap peculiarity

from tree to tree and behind will sway

the old woman covered into a shawl.

i woke early morning and it was dark then.

i went outside looked at the swirling

restless forest.

she arrived with her small kettle.

the little people on the hillside

again have not showed themselves to us.

i guess the prayers along with the tobacco

were heard and absorbed the time

they wandered near our homes.

no one seems to know if it’s

the good or bad which travels

with them.

ahead, sudden sickness in our children

will make us inquire.

they are targets accepting food readily

from acquaintances really the ones

whom we should fear.

the medicine men of the north

have all the right answers.

they know how to stop spells.

i feel the beginning catching up

and so i must stop

and go.

one chip of human bone

it is almost fitting

to die on the railroad tracks.

i can easily understand

how they felt on their long

staggered walks back

grinning to the stars.

there is something about

trains, drinking, and being

an indian with nothing to lose.

it didn’t take much talk for her

to realize that her brother

was drunk

a couple of years ago

when the morning wind blew a train

into his sleep

spreading the muscles and fibers

of his body over the tracks

prematurely towards the sun

claiming another

after the long stillness of bells

now jingling with persistence in her ears.

maybe we convinced her

in accordance to time and place

about this life where we walk with but few friends,

feeling around for reception

at our presence

willing to exchange old familiar connections

with no forgiveness added to our partings.

perhaps she is still thinking of new methods

by which to end herself

this coming weekend or the next.

surely it won’t be the same

as the last time she tried:

taking a bottle of aspirins

and downing them with a can of engine oil.

the people just laughed and said:

there are other ways, besides.…

one time before she went away

i dreamt of her

sitting on the tracks

attentive to the distant changing colors

of the signal post.

i knew what she thought and felt.

there were images of small black trains

circling around her teeth.

their wheels were throwing sparks

setting fire to her long stringy hair.

her eyes withdrew farther back inside

the skull of her head

afraid of the scars,

moving and shifting

across her ribs

like long silvery railroad tracks.

we stood that day peeling potatoes

for an old woman

and spoke too often of skimming visions—

as easily as opening your eyes

and asking for permission to walk

through the rain with your little bucket

to catch it in—

because you thought you had heard it

soaking into the window

and making strange tapping noises

as it came closer

after it had circled the house four times.

i mentioned my feelings

for trains

which reminded me of small whirlwinds

spinning across the backs

of old white crows

flying the night without instructions from their masters.

you said exactly.

i knew your fingers

rubbed the tracks eight times

spitting out your words

with bits of coughed-up blood to make things easier,

and hurrying the long way home

making sure that your trailing-shawl is not touched

by the sun’s fingers

whose daylight can infect you with black rotting skin.

though both of us try to live everything

the hard way,

there was one

who tore out his heart so that the children

would live slenderly without troubles.

it will become harder

when you try looking for us

for we blend too quickly with each other.

maybe sometimes shoulder to shoulder

like two crows

who sit on the sand

with our bellies full with the found meat

sharpening our talons against the rocks

and then

flying back to the old and hungry ones

our beaks drying in the wind and sun

the crust unable to come off

when we wash our faces by the river.

i often saw you with towels wrapped

around your head,

hanging over your eyes rubbed

with the shadow of woman’s oasis smile.

at dusk, carlights always gave you

away at your usual place:

walking the ditches.

my mother said you cooked each meal

for your mother laid in bed unable

to stand, looking out the window

till night.

did you ever think about the white

arabian horses that i buried

by the stream?

the dwarf slept until the birds banged

against his eyelids,

but it was only after great effort

that they succeeded in opening

his hollow eyes.

their opposites flew out, black, ruffled,

and fierce,

needing the water from the cold

springs.

to them it meant life for their master

and a hope of reviving him well enough to walk.

he had been asleep all through winter,

trying to figure out the old ways

by which he once practiced his medicine.

he did exactly as he was told:

he camouflaged himself in the berry bushes

and he aligned his pierced fingers

to the three positions of the moon.

he achieved his partial invisibility

and he caught crows as they danced on skulls

with their bellies full with the horsemeat,

and he listened to them,

smelled the enemy-lightning in their breath

as they mumbled and cackled about the different ways

they held counsel in trees,

the effectiveness of the unborn horse

inside the womb,

how they killed themselves as they grew old

by asking gentle words to come down

as a hail of ice—

it was honor to bleed along the rainbows.

days climbed inside his head,

filling it with secret upon secret,

and smiling whenever his straw-like reed

penetrated the hearts of humans.

one night, as he flew about checking

upon the images of himself,

standing around the points of his home,

he caught a green light glowing in the pine-trees.

he released it after it had changed into a firefly

and he followed it hovering across the paths.

it circled houses he often watched.

after following it over several hills,

he began to realize that the firefly

was aware of his intentions.

the firefly stepped out from the shadows

and greeted and announced himself.

the dwarf felt cold beads of water forming

on his wings. when he blinked his eyes

he expected to see a person, but before him

stood a one-legged salamander

speaking in a slow and leisure way that it was he,

the spirit of the salamander who spread

news of death. the salamander pointed

to him and he saw his house on fire.

no magic he had compared to that of his.

he thought of his children and of the moments

he gambled with their lives.

the salamander told him to forget his magic.

the dwarf stood crying and pleading

as the salamander hobbled away.

he promised him but he knew it wouldn’t work.

the seasons came and he absorbed the powers

of all those who knew no prayers to anyone.

he stayed away from puzzling funerals.

spells and dreams returned.

he remembered the last time he woke.

he saw himself on the beaks of small birds.

the birds cherished his bones and he would sing

of salamander faces, flat stones,

magical voices, and the frozen ice

over the river.

white buffalo runs sleeping through snow and mixes

me into animal bones avoiding to be struck by daylight.

red colored evenings accepted the meat

thrown as offering over this man’s old sky shoulders.

it seemed that while he skinned his kill

songs were composed from the difficult life

of earthmaker and he sat with a knife

eager for his wind

to carry body scent other directions.

there are in a house of many years

my shoulders held by fingers of the sun.

a mourning woman who sat in the continual middle

arrived in disguise as mother and wrapped a red

blanket

over my ways and edges even after

i had explained to her that i had known

of her before and that i knew of her intentions

of splitting the day and night in half

before my eyes

of sending the man with horns

with the body of a horse

walking and dancing into our paralyzed dreams.

she combed my hair with the wings of the seeking owl

properly

in the forests away from the houses.

she sang of spring birds and how brown running

waters

would signal to the appointees to begin

family deaths by witchcraft.

she showed me a handful of ribs.

i leaned too close to the sun and felt the warmth

of peyote brushing and pumping its images

into my blood and heart

of a birchtree

giving birth to crystal snowflakes.

i washed my face with the water from the thunder.

i listened to the reasoning of two crows

who had chased spirits away from men who had

fasted for fourteen days.

i thought of an intended life and autumn came shyly

bearing songs but no gentle children.

woman of the horses sat in my circles.

she created fire burning only on the occasion

when boars cleaned the skin of people

from their teeth beside green rivers.

the northern lights carried the meaning

of being far past the sufferings of night enemies.

old men inside rainbows offered no messages

but whispered of another existence closer

to a prayer than tears.

my grandfathers walked speaking in choices

across the black sky.

i stood inside them and released my hand

which held my words gathered into parts

of the earth.

the winter must be here.

everyone grows weary

as they change worlds

not knowing which to learn

or which to keep from.

my grandmother wears

her sweater even before

the day is halfway through.

she is thinking of snow

and the times she will brush

it off the green rock.

the hungry dogs and how unaware

they will be.

the fire will eat the food

in memory and for the strength

of her grandchildren.

i rub my face against the window

feeling the change will

never take the place for me

feeling everything i am

it will never be enough.

i am sitting in a hallway

ahead of me i feel the sound

of my legs brushing against

each other through the stiff

new pants

like a coiled wire i am walking

through friends and relatives

we each had to tell each other

that we didn’t belong

to be far away from home

away from the idea of what

we should be

in this hallway i woke up

into a fog wearing brightly

colored clothes and i found myself

again

even then i couldn’t believe

the presence of mountains

and when after three days

had gone into my life

i decided to walk

to the mountains

i kept walking over and coming

upon hills and rows and rows

of houses

and the white rocks on their roofs

finally made me realize that the mountains

were too far

i thought to myself

they’re going to take it

away from me as well

trying to fill the empty

spaces in my mind

i became the train i rode on

passengers without direction

racing through dark tunnels

gently in between and out of sleep

my body convinced we are home

because of the way the birds

sing and that echo

two times i’ve seen

the great water and where

the land comes to an end,

where the standing spot

bends to the sky,

where the bird’s wings

shaped the last cliff.

two times i remember

seeing and touching stones

on the sand beside the rotting

flesh of seals.

two times i stood apart

from the shell gatherer

and unwrapped from the green cloth,

from its tiny leather knots,

my offering to the water door

of the man who rode

the spiderweb.

two times, my grandmother’s

white hair. two times,

the grey waves of the ocean

brought the muskrat

and the newly found earth

together.

i will always miss the feeling

of friday on my mind.

the umbrella somewhere

in the dumps of south

viet nam. in exchange

for candy it will hide

the helicopter.

franco must be here

in a guy’s heart. i’ve

heard so much about him.

the closest i got was when

i machine-gunned

the people waist deep

inside the brown speckled

swamp. the castle where we drank

the sweet wine from giant fish bowls

has come against us. we knew that

when we killed them they tasted

the blood of whoever stood

beside them. some of us

thought of our families.

the cactus warms in our

bodies. the old mansion

where his friend played

cards has murdered his

brother and we see the stabbing

right through the door. while

i ran i made a song from

my wind. i have not held

this god beside me. only

this rock that i’ve often

heard about stays and at times

feel it must be true. his words

are like my dreams. they are eating

balls of rice in front of us.

i heard them talking a couple

of yards ahead of us. the jets flew

in v formation and they reminded me

of the wild ducks back home. once,

when i looked down, my wrists opened

and i wiped the blood on a tree.

i can only sit there and imagine.

they were ear close. the next day

i wore their severed fingers

on my belt. my little brother

and i hunted while someone close

was being buried on the same hill

where we will end. we hardly knew him,

coming into his family twelve years

too late. it was a time when

strawberries came bearing

no actual meanings. the bright

color of our young clothes walks

out from the fog. a house speaks

through the mouth and mind

of the silversmith. we saw the red

sand on his boots. what do we

remember of him? i remember he

said good-bye that one fall.

it was on a sunday. he was slender.

the burns from a rifle barrel spotted

half his face. april black is somewhere.

i scratched his back knowing

of sacrifices. the children

growing up drunk.

the day is now here

she said

if you feel the cold wind

in your face

please know it’s for you

to allow the need for

explanation

wooden men

of earth

that we are

cannot be mistaken

what it took to live out

our selection in

pointing at you

i dream of teeth moving along

the clear side of a fog

carving notches into sticks

my lungs regret the inhale

of smoke and ashes

smudged faces and misconceptions

for the spring

to will itself to produce

us good weather

it must be demanding

several tornadoes

touch the ground

and houses splinter

rapidly into

a thousand pieces

dead people tumble

in the air

amid the debris

of their personal

effects

i have tried hard

not to change

because i know

what it has meant

to me

how i

as a dark green river

has changed its course

i open my hands and

bits of sand slide

through my fingers

somewhere inside me

there is a memory

of my grandfathers stalking

and catching robins

in the night of early

spring for food.

the snow continues

to gather children

outside, and i think,

as long as they are moving.

the frost sets itself

on the window before

the old man’s eye.

we sit together

and imagine designs

which will eventually

vanish when the room

and talk become warm.

he goes over the people

one by one and stops at one,

because he can’t find any

answers as to why she took

the instrument and used it as if

she were one. they do not like

her much, he says, dancing barefoot

with tight clothes, taking the songs

into a small black machine.

it’s how you breathe and space the song.

the same old crowd will be out

of jail soon, and then,

back again. the trees

will be running with sweetwater

and hard work is to be expected.

there is much error in the way

we carry our being and purpose.

we covered everything with his

conclusions and sometimes

he balanced his confusion

with a small gesture and said,

better to leave things like that

alone. nobody will understand.

i pressed my fingers

against the window, leaving

five clear answers of the day

before it left, barking

down the road.

i hear the ocean water

swishing inside my ears.

the winds continue to grow

hot. ash comes down off

the burning mountains.

sleeping all day,

nobody ever came to wake me

among milky answers.

i left a trail of spit

on a sidewalk untouched.

she has children

crowded in her kitchen.

by handfuls she stuffs

indian corn into their

grimy mouths.

like lovers we go to her,

determined.

everything would

without failure

end up in my room.

my brother would be there

sighing immaturely:

son of a bitch.

disheartened,

i agreed.

autumn.

ducks.

corn clicking

in their stomachs.

listen to the words coming

from our elders when they mention

our blood drying inside us and how

it peels

shedding itself

the more we pretend

with each other

the way our legs tire easily

and how they collapse

as if by purpose when

in flight from legless

crawling spirits

who notice that we do not wear

turtle feet around our necks

their fangs are set to bite us

the intent being to release and extract

lies we have fed to our bodies

a minor part of life nobody needs

is the reply i hear

i try to make your eyes

blend farther inside mine

to make you see where

we stand distant from

our actual places

holding on to our phantom arms

the only comfort we feel

i ask for your name when

the feeling comes to tell you

of this but you are constantly absent

or else you reason that it’s of

little value besides being late

i sometimes speak for you

and i think you do the same

because i have seen it in your face

when i talk about my veins and how

i have tied them to the dawn

and how i hang suspended

above the earth

refusing to eat away my veins

as you have done

tonight, i encircle myself to a star

and my love for the earth shimmers

like schools of small rainbow-colored fish,

lighting the drowned walnut trees inside

the brown flooded rivers

swelling birth along the woods.

i think of each passing day when time expands,

bringing the land against my chest

and the birds keep walking as they

sing wildly over our house:

be in this daylight with me.

push yourself from the walls.

let me see you walk beneath me.

let me see your head sway.

let me see you breathe.

everyone has been up into the daylight.

i walk over her head and remember

of being told that no knives

or sharp objects must pierce

inside her hair.

this is her hair.

another grandmother whose hair

i am combing.

there are paths winding over her face

and every step is the same:

the feeling of one who is well known,

one who knows the warmth rising

as morning talking mother.

in her hands she prepares snow for the visitor.