When the Light of the World was Subdued (Part 2)

Source of book: I own this

 

[I am intentionally not yet posting anything about the election. I will eventually, as it may have an effect on this blog going forward. Stay tuned.] 

 

This is the second installment of posts about this collection of Native Nations poetry. You can read the first one here. As I noted in the first post, the book is divided into section based on geography. The first section was the northeast and midwest. This one is the plains and mountains. Within the section, the poems are arranged in chronological order based on the date of birth of the poet. 

 

The Plains nations are ones that are often familiar to us white folk, although often for the wrong reasons. We may know the names of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the defeat of Custer, the massacre at Wounded Knee. Some of the nations have made it into our vernacular, such as Dakota, Omaha, Cheyenne, Muscogee. Others are familiar: Crow, Blackfoot, Kiowa, Sioux, Shoshone, Comanche. And a few are less so: Ihanktonwa, Kootenai, Anishinaabe, Assiniboine. 

 

Our American mythology often centers around the Plains and Mountains tribes, with white people cast as the heroes fighting off the murderous subhuman savages. Forgotten - or more accurately intentionally suppressed - are the stories of genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft, broken treaties, and the murder of women and children that are a more accurate characterization of the American government toward the nations of our continent’s heartland. 

 

As with the previous section, this one contains poems about a wide variety of subjects. Certainly there is reckoning with the past, but also hope for the future, and the universal human themes that inspire all humans of good will. 

 

Like the other part, I struggled to select a modest number of poems to feature. So many were outstanding and meaningful, and all I can do is pick the ones that spoke to me the most this time through, and encourage my readers to purchase this book and immerse themselves in it. 

 

Joy Harjo and her contributing editors again did a fantastic job of choosing a wide variety of poems and authors. Women are well represented, as are the many nations. 

 

The first poet featured is Elsie Fuller, born sometime in the 1870s, with an unknown life span. She was from the Omaha nation, and was one of many Native children stolen from their families and forced to learn English and white culture at boarding schools. Oh, and she also was sent to “work” for white families in New England during her summers rather than seeing her family. In another context, we would call this slavery. 

 

In any case, this poem packs a punch. 

 

A New Citizen

 

Now I am a citizen!

            They’ve given us new laws,

Just as were made

            By Senator Dawes.

 

We need not live on rations,

            Why? There is no cause,

For “Indians are citizens,”

            Said Senator Dawes.

 

Just give us a chance,

            We never will pause.

Till we are good citizens

            Like Senator Dawes.

 

Now we are citizens,

            We all give him applause-

So three cheers, my friends,

For Senator Dawes!

 

Shostakovich would perhaps approve of that sarcasm. 

 

Next up is D’Arcy McNickle, of the Metis and Confederated Salish and Kootenai nations. He is probably best known for his work at the Bureau of Indian Affairs encouraging greater autonomy for tribes. He also taught and wrote in a variety of genres. 

 

Man Hesitates but Life Urges

 

There is this shifting, endless film

And I have followed it down the valleys

And over the hills, -

Pointing with wavering finger

When it disappeared in purple forest-patches

With its ruffle and wave to the slightest-breathing wind-god.

 

There is this film

Seen suddenly, far off

When the sun, walking to his setting,

Turns back for a last look,

And out there on the far, far prairie

A lonely drowsing cabin catches and holds a glint,

For one how endless moment,

In a staring window the fire and song of the martyrs!

 

There is this film

That has passed to my fingers

And I have trembled,

Afraid to touch.

 

And in the eyes of one

Who had wanted to give what I had asked

But hesitated - tried - and then

Came with a weary, aged, “Not quite,”

I could but see that single realmless point of time,

All that is sad, and tired, and old -

And endless, shifting film.

 

And I went again

Down the valleys and over the hills,

Pointing with wavering finger;

Ever reaching to touch, trembling,

Ever fearful to touch. 

 

That’s a truly beautiful poem. 

 

I have previously posted about N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), who I really love. There are several of his poems in this collection, which is no surprise, as he is one of the premier Native poets of our time. I chose this one to feature in this post. 

 

The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee

 

I am a feather on the bright sky.

I am the blue horse that runs in the plain.

I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water. 

I am the shadow that follows a child.

I am the evening light, the luster of meadows.

I am an eagle playing with the wind.

I am a cluster of bright beads.

I am the farthest star.

I am the cold of dawn.

I am the roaring of the rain.

I am the glitter on the crust of the snow.

I am the long track of the moon in a lake.

I am a flame of four colors.

I am a deer standing away in the dusk.

I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche.

I am an angle of geese in the winter sky.

I am the hunger of a young wolf. 

I am the whole dream of these things.

You see, I am alive, I am alive.

I stand in good relation to the earth.

I stand in good relation to the gods.

I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful.

I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte.

You see, I am alive, I am alive. 

 

The next one is by Lance Henson (Southern Cheyenne). 

 

Anniversary Poem for Cheyennes Who Died at Sand Creek

 

when we have come this long way

past cold grey fields

past the stone markers etched with the

names they left us

 

we will speak for the first time to the season

to the ponds

 

touching the dead grass

 

our voices the color of watching

 

This one, by John Trudell (Santee Dakota), seems relevant today. 

 

Diablo Canyon

 

Today I challenged the nukes

The soldiers of the state

Placed me in captivity

Or so they thought

They bound my wrists in their

Plastic handcuffs

Surrounding me with their

Plastic minds and faces

They ridiculed me

But I could see through 

To the ridicule they brought

On themselves

They told me to squat over there

By the trash

They left a soldier to guard me

I was the Vietcong

I was Crazy Horse

 

Little did they understand

Squatting down in the earth

They placed me with my power

My power to laugh

Laugh at their righteous wrong

Their sneers and their taunts

Gave me clarity

To see their powerlessness

 

It was in the way they dressed

And in the way they acted

They viewed me as an enemy

A threat to their rationalizations

I felt pity for them

Knowing they will never be free

 

I was their captive

But my heart was racing

Through the generations

The memories of eternity

 

It was beyond their reach

I would be brought to the 

Internment camps 

To share my time with allies

 

This time I almost wanted to believe you

When you spoke of peace and love and

Caring and duty and god and destiny

But somehow the death in your eyes and 

Your bombs and your taxes and your

Greed and your face-life told me

 

This time I cannot afford to believe you

 

I want to send the last two stanzas out to my parents, who I wanted to believe for so long, but have turned out to have lied about all that shit about peace and love and caring and duty and god - it was all just lies they didn’t believe. In the end, it was all just greed and racism and hate, and they threw me away as soon as I stopped validating them. Kind of like Evangelicalism did. 

 

This next poem is by Nila Northsun (Shoshone and Anishinaabe). As someone who has enjoyed cooking since childhood, and who has eaten commodity cheese, this poem resonated with me. 

 

Cooking Class

 

when you’ve starved most of your life

when commodities

the metalling instant potatoes

the hold your nose canned pork

the pineapple juice that never dies

the i didn’t soak them long enough pinto beans

the even the dog won’t eat this potted meat

potted as in should have been buried

in a potter’s field

when the wonderful commodity cheese 

or terrible commodity cheese

that winos tuck ‘neath their pits

and knock on your door

trying to sell it for $5

but taking $3

is all stored in the basdement

or in closets

or left in the original boxes

lining hallways

of your hud house

cause there’s just no more room

you wonder

how can anyone starve

with so much food

but there are other starvations

like developing the taste for

lard sandwiches

or mustard and commodity cheese sandwiches

just cut the mold off the crusts of bread

and boil the tomato juice until it’s usable as

a spaghetti sauce

certainly don’t use the tomato sauce for

your Sunday morning bloody mary

to accompany your blueberry blintzes

or smoked salmon quiche

unless 

you have a major change in attitude

cause the dried egg product can quiche

with the flour

and the powdered milk

and if you’re a northwest coast tribe

salmon or whatever fish

thing is possible

if not

some rich people pay good money

for the antelope or elk you can knock off

in your back yard

why bother with just goose liver pate

when you can have the whole damn canadian honker

blasted from its migratory path?

pheasants and quail are roadkill all the time

it’s just tenderized

it’s all in the attitude

and the presentation

parsley does wonders

for aesthetic contrast to

macaroni and cheese

again

and again

and again

 

I have to include this one, by Heid E. Erdrich (Anisinaabe - Turtle Mountain Band), who is the sister of Louise Erdrich, whose books I have written about several times. Heid also wrote the introduction to this section, which is excellent. As regular readers know, I am a huge fan of Robert Frost, and have been since childhood. That said, his poem “The Gift Outright” is a bunch of Manifest Destiny horseshit, which deserves this response. 

 

The Theft Outright

                        after Frost

 

We were the land’s before we were.

 

Or the land was ours before you were a land.

Or this land was our land, it was not your land.

 

We were the land before we were people,

loamy roamers rising, so the stories go,

or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul -

 

What’s America, but the legend of Rock ‘n’ Roll?

 

Red rocks, blood clots bearing boys, blood sands

swimming being from women’s hands, we originate,

originally, spontaneous as hemorrhage. 

 

Unpossessing of what we still are possessed by,

possessed by what we now no more possess.

 

We were the land before we were people,

dreamy sunbeams where sun don’t shine, so the stories go,

or pulled up a hole, clawing past ants and roots - 

 

Dineh in documentaries scoff DNA evidence off.

They landed late, but canyons spoke them home.

Nomadic Turkish horse tribes they don’t know.

 

What’s America, but the legend of Stop ‘n’ Go?

 

Could be cousins, left on the land bridge,

contrary to popular belief, that was a two-way toll.

In any case we’d claim them, give them someplace to stay.

 

Such as we were we gave most things outright

(the deed of the theft was many deeds and leases and claim stakes

and tenure disputes and moved plat markers stolen still today…)

 

We were the land before we were a people,

earthdivers, her darling mudpuppies, so the stories go,

or emerging, fully forming from flesh of earth - 

 

The land, not the least vaguely, realizing in all four directions,

still storied, art-filled, fully enhanced.

Such as she is, such as she wills us to become. 

 

I’ll end with this one, by Tevino L. Brings Plenty (Minneconjou Lakota). 

 

Ghost River

 

I’m mostly water.

There has been family swept under by raw currents.

 

I’m from planters from the river.

We dredged riverbed bones.

 

Water is faces lined blue.

Red horses bay bodies hooked from fish line.

 

And what was sown, brown hands dug free.

I’m mostly other people. 

 

Family is pulled pail full from source.

I’m from river people. 

 

We prep the light from matted hair.

Water catches flame.

 

The black horses hoof rock, halving them like thin, infant skulls.

And what was sown, brown hands dug free. 

 

In these troubled times, it will be increasingly necessary for those of us who still retain basic human decency to pull together, and keep the voices of the marginalized alive. I strongly recommend purchasing books like this both to encourage publishers to keep publishing them despite pressure from the bigots, and also because there is a significant risk that publishers will cave to the fascists and end their attempts to print books by those other voices.