1.
I unroll my map
And a photocopy
Of the palm of my left hand,
Weigh down the corners with
A fist sized chunk of peach colored flint, a
Barite rose
Some gypsum and
A piece of ruby jack
Then set in to work.

2.
There is a certain art
To a good mistranslation.

3.
I remember rage and impatient violence.
These days
I’m more likely
To pile river rocks in the bathtub
For love of smooth things
Things as edgeless as I can have them.

4.
The man asks me
“Do you speak Cherokee”
But it’s all I ever speak
The end goal of several generations of a
Smuggling project.
We’ve slipped the barriers
Evaded border guards.
I smile,
“Always.”

Barely-morning pink curtains
drape an open window. Roaches scatter,

the letter t vibrating in cottonwoods.
His hair horsetail and snakeweed.

I siphon doubt from his throat
for the buffalograss.

Seep willow antler press against
the memory of the first man I saw naked.

His tongue a mosquito whispering
its name a hymn on mesquite,

my cheek. The things we see the other do
collapse words into yucca bone.

The Navajo word for eye
hardens into the word for war.

I hope to God you will not ask me to go anywhere except my own country. If we go back, we will follow whatever orders you give us. We do not want to go right or left, but straight back to our own land.
          —Barboncito

I hope to God you will not ask

Me or my People to send

Postcard greetings: lamented wind

Of perfect sunrisings, golden

Yes, we may share the same sun setting

But the in-between hours are hollow

The People fill the void with prayers for help

Calling upon the Holy Ones

Those petitions penetrate and loosen

The binds you tried to tighten

Around our heart, a tension

Blocking the wind, like a shell

Fluttering inside, fluttering inside

Sun makes the day new.
Tiny green plants emerge from earth.
Birds are singing the sky into place.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here.
I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us.
We gallop into a warm, southern wind.
I link my legs to yours and we ride together,
Toward the ancient encampment of our relatives.
Where have you been? they ask.
And what has taken you so long?
That night after eating, singing, and dancing
We lay together under the stars.
We know ourselves to be part of mystery.
It is unspeakable.
It is everlasting.
It is for keeps.

                              MARCH 4, 2013, CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS

These are notes to lightning in my bedroom.
A star forged from linen thread and patches.
Purple, yellow, red like diamond suckers, children

of the star gleam on sweaty nights. The quilt unfolds 
against sheets, moving, warm clouds of Chinook. 
It covers my cuts, my red birch clusters under pine.

Under it your mouth begins a legend, 
and wide as the plain, I hope Wisconsin marshes 
promise your caress. The candle locks

us in forest smells, your cheek tattered
by shadow. Sweetened by wings, my mothlike heart 
flies nightly among geraniums.

We know of land that looks lonely, 
but isn't, of beef with hides of velveteen, 
of sorrow, an eddy in blood.

Star quilt, sewn from dawn light by fingers 
of flint, take away those touches 
meant for noisier skins,

annoint us with grass and twilight air, 
so we may embrace, two bitter roots 
pushing back into the dust.

^{Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing
flowers home.
         —Wisława Szymborska}

In the Kashmir mountains,
my brother shot many men,
blew skulls from brown skins,
dyed white desert sand crimson.

What is there to say to a man
who has traversed such a world,
whose hands and eyes have
betrayed him?

Were there flowers there? I asked.

This is what he told me:

In a village, many men
wrapped a woman in a sheet.
She didn’t struggle.
Her bare feet dragged in the dirt.

They laid her in the road
and stoned her.

The first man was her father.
He threw two stones in a row.
Her brother had filled his pockets
with stones on the way there.

The crowd was a hive
of disturbed bees. The volley
of stones against her body
drowned out her moans.

Blood burst through the sheet
like a patch of violets,
a hundred roses in bloom.

We had been together so very long,
you willing to swim with me
just last month, myself merely small
in the ocean of splendor and light,
the reflections and distortions of us,
and now when I see the man from British Petroleum
lift you up dead from the plastic
bin of death,
he with a smile, you burned
and covered with red-black oil, torched
and pained, all I can think is that I loved your life,
the very air you exhaled when you rose,
old great mother, the beautiful swimmer,
the mosaic growth of shell
so detailed, no part of you
simple, meaningless,
or able to be created
by any human,
only destroyed.
How can they learn
the secret importance
of your beaten heart,
the eyes of another intelligence
than ours, maybe greater,
with claws, flippers, plastron.
Forgive us for being thrown off true,
for our trespasses,
in the eddies of the water
where we first walked.

WHEREAS when offered an apology I watch each movement the shoulders
                        high or folding, tilt of the head both eyes down or straight through
                        me, I listen for cracks in knuckles or in the word choice, what is it
                        that I want? To feel and mind you I feel from the senses—I read
                        each muscle, I ask the strength of the gesture to move like a poem.
                        Expectation’s a terse arm-fold, a failing noun-thing
                        I scold myself in the mirror for holding.

                        Because I learn from young poets. One sends me new work spotted
                        with salt crystals she metaphors as her tears. I feel her phrases,
                        “I say,” and “Understand me,” and “I wonder.”

                        Pages are cavernous places, white at entrance, black in absorption.
                        Echo.

                        If I’m transformed by language, I am often
                        crouched in footnote or blazing in title.
                        Where in the body do I begin;

Long, long ago, my people say, as their traditions tell,
They were a happy, powerful race, loved and respected well.
To them belonged the sacred charge, the synagogue to keep,
And every Autumn to the tribes, the Manitou’s praises speak.
And all things went with them full well, the Manitou was pleased;
The Indian race was numerous then, countless as the trees;
The Manitou was kind to them, he filled the woods with game,
And in the rivers and the seas were fish of every name.

And to his children did he give the vast and broad domain;
Some the mountains and valleys took, while others chose the plain;
And everything to comfort them did the Manitou provide,
He gave them fish, game, herbs and maize, and other things beside.
He gave them rivers, lakes and bays, o’er which canoes did glide,
Forests dense and mountains high, great plains the other side.
The men were strong and brave and true, to them belonged the chase,
The women loving, kind and good, who filled a simpler place.

And they were taught while here on earth their spirits to prepare,
To join the Manitou himself, in the happy hunting-ground somewhere;
That they must never lie and steal; must for each other care;
That principles are gems that pass us to that country there.
And even though the wars do come with aggressive tribe or band,
No warrior shall strike a fallen foe, or wrong a helpless hand;
And if your foe shall sue for peace, let not his plea be vain,
Produce the pipe, and smoke with him, smothering the wrathful flame.

And while the smoke ascends above, breathe a prayer together,
That spirits of departed friends make peace beyond the river;
The Manitou’s compassion seek, for he was sorely grieved,
Provide for the widows of the slain, that their needs be relieved.
If a stranger enters in your lodge, give him both food and bed,
E’en if known to be your foe, no harm hangs o’er his head,
For now he is your honored guest, your protection he does claim;
Whate’er your source of difference be, contest it on the plain.

The voice of the Great Spirit now is heard in every clime,
The rumblings of the thunder, the whisperings of the pine;
The works of the Great Spirit are seen on every hand,
Flowers, forests, mountains, stars, sun and even man.
The Lenape all should gather in the Autumn there to praise
The wonders of the Manitou, the goodness of his grace;
And they to tell the Nations what to them he has unbound,
And the way for them to reach the happy hunting-ground.

Once many thousand moons ago, in the synagogue there came
All the tribes and warriors from the forest, hill and plain;
And while they were assembled there a young man rose to say,
The Manitou had shown him in a vision on that day
From afar a huge canoe with pinions spreading wide,
Coming o’er the waters from across the sunrise side;
And in that huge canoe were people of strange dress,
All were armed as warriors, though they peacefulness professed.

They told them of their God, “who came and died for men,”
And they were messengers from Him to save them from their sin,
But first, they said, they must have land, and thus a home prepare,
Then they would teach them truth, and heaven with them share.
The young man to the warriors old his vision further told,
And prophesied that from that day these tempters would grow bold;
That each would have a different creed, to teach a different tribe,
And when one told another each would think the other lied.

The young man for his people lamented loud and long;
He saw the friendship broken that always had been strong,
Dissension, war, and trouble, their happiness succeed,
Tribes rise against each other, their warriors die and bleed.
At last, their faith all shattered, home, game and country gone,
Dejected, broken-hearted, he saw them westward roam.
The Manitou was sorrowful that they should faithless be,
“And now where is the heaven the stranger promised thee?”

And some of the young warriors did live to see the day,
When across the sea from sunrise, with pinions flying gay,
Came great canoes with strangers who soon did boldly land,
And with a friendly gesture, extended the right hand.
Forgetful of the warning, they received them all as friends;
And made the sacred pledges to share with them their lands.
The Indians, true and faithful, their promise did fulfill,
And eager sought the teachings of the white man’s God and will.

And this recalls sweet memories of at least one truthful man;
He made and kept a promise in treating for our land;
His deeds of loving-kindness strength to their teachings lend,
And sacred in our memory is the name of William Penn.
But alas! for faith and trusting, few others like him came,
The white man’s promised friendship, thenceforth we found was vain.
While noble were his teachings, his practice was deceit,
And thus the friends we trusted, our fondest hopes defeat.

And now the road is open across the stormy sea,
The strangers are invaders—our friends no longer be!
Our Manitou is angry, their God hears not our cry,
On the bloody field of battle the noble warriors die.
Again with peace and presents our friendship would be sought,
Requesting that our vengeance on some other tribe be brought.
And now for this protection and their proffered friendship-hand,
The boasted Christian strangers ask to have as much more land.

Now many moons have passed, the Indians are but few;
For comments on the prophecy, I’ll leave that all to you.
Is the white man still deceiving? Is the Indian being robbed?
Will he yet share his heaven and the teachings of his God?
The Indian was just a savage, but he would not lie and steal,
The white man’s highly civilized, but his conscience could not feel,
To rob poor, trusting Indians—well, to him it was no sin,
And to break a solemn treaty was a very clever thing.

And when the Indian to the white man makes complaint about his land,
He is told with solemn gestures, “Seek the Government—not the man.”
“He will be your good, great father and adopt you as his child,
He knows better what you need, and will protect you all the while.”
But the father was forgetful of his foster children’s care,
So the Indian thus discouraged, finds relief not anywhere.
Will a Nation for its actions have to pass the judgment bar,
Or will God excuse the people, if the deeds the Nation’s are?

He now sees the “Good, Great Father,” better known as “Uncle Sam,”
Offering home, aid and protection to the poor of foreign lands;
Sees the foreigners in numbers seek his own beloved shore,
Where justice, love and liberty reign free forever more.
Sees the foreigners in Council, aid in making laws most just,
While he’s no voice in legislation and his lands are held in trust,
Do you know a greater torture, or think his feelings can be guessed
When he sees such freedom cherished, while his own rights are oppressed?

When on the day of judgment, their records there to see,
As God turns o’er the pages, who will the braver be?
For one is just a savage, his simple faith applies;
The other one, a white man, very highly civilized.
And should they be together long enough to treat,
Do you suppose the white man the Indian there would cheat?
Or if the chance is given, when the judgment’s handed down,
Would the white man take his heaven or the Indians’ Hunting-Ground?

Do you think that Missionaries need be sent to foreign land,
To find fields for Christian duties and neglect the savage man?
In the land of peace and freedom can bondmen still be found?
Where every man does loudly boast class-legislation is not known!
Should neither one sit on the jury without the aid of ex-parte law,
Were the records brought from heaven, the court hear what the angels saw,
Have you doubts about the judgment? Would the white man pay the cost?
Or would the heir by birthright learn that there his case was lost?

In this the Indian’s version, can he still be justified,
Or was it for his poor sake, too, that Christ was crucified?
Will Christians stand by idly, nor lend a helping hand,
And by their silence justify the seizure of his land?
Or will their God from heaven hear the Indian’s plea
And prompt the Christian people to lend him sympathy,
And through their earnest efforts, not sympathy alone,
Redeem the Nation’s credit before the Judgment Throne?

Let the Indian have some duties, treat him as a worthy man,
Give him voice in the elections, give him title to his land,
Give him place of trust and honor, let him feel this yet his home,
Let him use his mind and muscle, let his actions be his own,
Pay him what is justly due him, let your Government be his, too,
He will battle with each problem, just as faithfully as you.
One who proves himself a warrior and of danger knows no fear,
Surely can find ways to master each new problem that draws near.

The willows were turning green, slips of leafs
pointing to one another in a slow tempo soothing
the air with whispers of coming water. Her feet
were bare and the earth cool while a loose hem
feathered her ankles for her walk. Bracing on
stems for the gradual pace to not disturb all the
sleeping turtles, she wished for sunlight in a
shade of green to hurry growth and to keep her
hidden. How close could she lean into the
memory of relatives who lived this life of damp
shells and slow demeanor without alerting them
of her intent. All of grandma’s voices were now
shaking her sleepy mind and begging her return
to answer the details of her dream. It was the
call of tradition that signaled the next step to
seal the new experience into her life basket.
She will be served turtle's energy for her growth.
Off of grandma's favorite tree a knot was cut and
shaped into a bowl. Handles in the shape of
young turtles were carved into the sides. Into
the cottonwood bowl was poured the prepared
soup with essence of memory from a life once
lived. Thanking all that came before this earth
life, was her detailed prayer. A calling of all
water animals to witness the taking of one
energy to give to the energy of another, a child
who passed the test of recalling ancient blood.
Her heart will live with turtle strength. Her
life will be long and purposefully directed. Her
song will be like the cool breeze moving tall
willows above eddies remembering motion.

The willows were turning green, slips of leafs
pointing to one another in a slow tempo soothing
the air with whispers of coming water. Her feet
were bare and the earth cool while a loose hem
feathered her ankles for her walk. Bracing on
stems for the gradual pace to not disturb all the
sleeping turtles, she wished for sunlight in a
shade of green to hurry growth and to keep her
hidden. How close could she lean into the
memory of relatives who lived this life of damp
shells and slow demeanor without alerting them
of her intent. All of grandma’s voices were now
shaking her sleepy mind and begging her return
to answer the details of her dream. It was the
call of tradition that signaled the next step to
seal the new experience into her life basket.
She will be served turtle's energy for her growth.
Off of grandma's favorite tree a knot was cut and
shaped into a bowl. Handles in the shape of
young turtles were carved into the sides. Into
the cottonwood bowl was poured the prepared
soup with essence of memory from a life once
lived. Thanking all that came before this earth
life, was her detailed prayer. A calling of all
water animals to witness the taking of one
energy to give to the energy of another, a child
who passed the test of recalling ancient blood.
Her heart will live with turtle strength. Her
life will be long and purposefully directed. Her
song will be like the cool breeze moving tall
willows above eddies remembering motion.

All night during this last decay of autumn moon,
wings have been banging on the eves of my roof,
forcing slivers of shiny black quills to take hold
of all my private continuances. Every evening
for relentless hours, eyes reflecting moon’s fullness,
yellow and prying, seep through every crack in the
roof and walls. In my mind this rogue is sleek and
wants to inject a language of advice into all the layers
of wood and knots. An amount, I fully suspect, of
gray split tongue heaviness, speaking undeniable,
unchallenged but for sure on the level of new myths.
This ancient teller of old stories wants to bargain with
me. In exchange for the placement of a large winter
nest of retreat in my attic (no sticks, just debris,
wire and tubing. No dried leaves, but used plastic
sacks and old newspapers), he will tell his oldest
stories for the troubled times of the now. Stories kept
hidden like aged rocks that spark, breath and speak
when hit by flint knives, or live for a hot new fire to
sooth, replenish. His approach is a slow march of
scaled skin and worn talons from clawing his way
through. My Dakota tongue knows his rasping songs,
his pitiful stories. Always perched up high, almost
beyond reach, viewing from where we have to look
up to the divine, the sun, our blindness. It is always
the line of trees and wires, where his advantage of
looking down serves as equal. Now so close the
messenger wants his voice to be the only sound, my
attention so focused, exhales finally. I take down the
webs, wipe dust from cracked panes, open the smallest
window, leave it open for his coming and going. I’ll
have to wait, ponder as he prepares. Two of a kind,
readying our defense. Our lives will ultimately accept
what each has come to realize—how to translate this
culture for the hungry, the seemingly lost, those who
never knew what we have kept guarded so carefully
for such as them.

Kangi – Crow (Lakota language)

for Cosetta

Once there were coyotes, cardinals
in the cedar. You could cure amnesia
with the trees of our back-forty. Once
I drowned in a monsoon of frogs—
Grandma said it was a good thing, a promise
for a good crop. Grandma’s perfect tomatoes.
Squash. She taught us to shuck corn, laughing,
never spoke about her childhood
or the faces in gingerbread tins
stacked in the closet.

She was covered in a quilt, the Creek way.
But I don’t know this kind of burial:
vanishing toads, thinning pecan groves,
peach trees choked by palms.
New neighbors tossing clipped grass
over our fence line, griping to the city
of our overgrown fields.

Grandma fell in love with a truck driver,
grew watermelons by the pond
on our Indian allotment,
took us fishing for dragonflies.
When the bulldozers came
with their documents from the city
and a truckload of pipelines,
her shotgun was already loaded.

Under the bent chestnut, the well
where Cosetta’s husband
hid his whiskey—buried beneath roots
her bundle of beads. They tell
the story of our family. Cosetta’s land
flattened to a parking lot.

Grandma potted a cedar sapling
I could take on the road for luck.
She used the bark for heart lesions
doctors couldn’t explain.
To her they were maps, traces of home,
the Milky Way, where she’s going, she said.

After the funeral
I stowed her jewelry in the ground,
promised to return when the rivers rose.

On the grassy plain behind the house
one buffalo remains.

Along the highway’s gravel pits
sunflowers stand in dense rows.
Telephone poles crook into the layered sky.
A crow’s beak broken by a windmill’s blade.
It is then I understand my grandmother:
When they see open land
they only know to take it.

I understand how to walk among hay bales
looking for turtle shells.
How to sing over the groan of the county road
widening to four lanes.
I understand how to keep from looking up:
small planes trail overhead
as I kneel in the Johnson grass
combing away footprints.

Up here, parallel to the median
with a vista of mesas’ weavings,
the sky a belt of blue and white beadwork,
I see our hundred and sixty acres
stamped on God’s forsaken country,
a roof blown off a shed,
beams bent like matchsticks,
a drove of white cows
making their home
in a derailed train car.

1.

Menwi – yakwatoni – beskonewiani.
Kyebakewina – maneniaki
ketekattiki
ebemanemateki
ebemanemateki

                            *

Good-smelling are these flowers.
As it turned out, they were milkweeds
dance-standing
as the wind passes by,
as the wind passes by.

2.

Inike – ekatai – waseyaki
netena – wasesi.
Memettine
beskattenetisono.
Memettine.

                            *

It is now almost daylight,
I said to the firefly.
For the last time
illuminate yourself.
For the last time.

The weight of ashes
from burned-out camps.
Lodges smoulder in fire,
animal hides wither
their mythic images shrinking
pulling in on themselves,
all incinerated
fragments
of breath bone and basket 
rest heavy
sink deep
like wintering frogs.
And no dustbowl wind
can lift
this history
of loss.

Now fertilized by generations—
ashes upon ashes,
this old earth erupts.
Medicine voices rise like mists
white buffalo memories
teeth marks on birch bark 
forgotten forms
tremble into wholeness.

And the grey weathered stumps,
trees and treaties
cut down
trampled for wealth.
Flat Potlatch plateaus
of ghost forests
raked by bears
soften rot inward
until tiny arrows of green
sprout
rise erect
rootfed
from each crumbling center.

Some will never laugh
as easily.
Will hide knives
silver as fish in their boots,
hoard names
as if they could be stolen
as easily as land,
will paper their walls
with maps and broken promises,
scar their flesh
with this badge
heavy as ashes.

And this is a poem
for those
apprenticed
from birth.
In the womb
of your mother nation
heartbeats
sound like drums
drums like thunder
thunder like twelve thousand
walking
then ten thousand
then eight
walking away
from stolen homes
from burned out camps
from relatives fallen
as they walked
then crawled
then fell.

This is the woodpecker sound
of an old retreat.
It becomes an echo.
an accounting
to be reconciled.
This is the sound
of trees falling in the woods
when they are heard,
of red nations falling
when they are remembered.
This is the sound
we hear
when fist meets flesh
when bullets pop against chests
when memories rattle hollow in stomachs.    

And we turn this sound
over and over again
until it becomes
fertile ground
from which we will build
new nations
upon the ashes of our ancestors.
Until it becomes
the rattle of a new revolution
these fingers
drumming on keys.

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear,
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion, 
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us. 
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.