It's great to be recovering from Sparrows 2007 which took place March 1-4. We had great crowds from all over the West and the performers were spectacular. See more pictures at www.sparrowspoetry.com.
It looks like we will be linking to a pod-cast in the near future. Stay tuned. Also may get some video up soon. Right now we need some new poetry. Send some this way. Post on the comments section, please. I'm suffering from post-Sparrows poetry deprivation.
Meanwhile, here's one from me, a kind of "state of the union."
Falling
if rain is clouds falling
this house belongs to
the sky but also to a
friend who smokes
cigarettes and burns
our eyes late into the
night the ionic air purifier
from Wal-mart is already
exhausted from trying
to act like a lung and
under the stars that show
up clearly here far from
our old overlit Hollywood home
i hear the honk of geese
the snort of deer outside
the gate and red-wing
black-birds have returned
to chortle loudly in the
cottonwood outside the
window but inside with the
windows all closed
later than i like my
head and heart swirl
with new ideas that
i think are god falling
carrying
birth in seeds of trees
that grow to praise god
and let us breathe
freely then i too belong
to the sky and to the land
that holds this house
and one day soon i will
breathe freely again
because
god is clouds
i am rain and
falling is my birthright
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1 comment:
I got the first quote from the back of the paint swatch. I got the rest of the quotes from "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"
Naming Paint
"To reach optimal color and hiding performance, additional coats recommended."
who apologizes for past generations?
stop hiding like shadows under ladders
on top of mesas
stop hiding in hogans at two gray hills
stop hiding in names white people apply to paint
dine are not white
“So my ancestors asked the Army to hold up for a while and to let the woman give birth. But the soldiers wouldn’t do it. They forced my people to move on, saying that they were getting behind the others. The soldiers told the parents that they had to leave their daughter behind.
" ‘Go ahead,' the daughter said to her parents, ‘things might come out all right with me.’ But the poor thing was mistaken, my grandparents used to say. Not long after they had moved on, they heard a gunshot from where they had been a short time ago."
do not
want to be white
haven't ever wanted to be white
do you?
"Mothers were sometimes forced to suffocate their hungry, crying babies to keep the family from being discovered and butchered."
after they were forced to hide
in non existent corners
forced to hide in caves at Canyon de Chelly
with no food
or water
on top of mesas with no protection
forced to pull up ladders so whites couldn't attack
so whites couldn't change their color
at night, skinwalkers saved them
went to find water and food
there is no hiding place from ignorance
it doesn't matter how many coats of Navajo White are applied
"The route of the Long Walk was marked by the frozen corpses of Indians, who, too fatigued to go on, had crawled to the wayside to die."
as I stand here in the paint section at Home Depot
staring at a swatch of paint called Navajo White
I hang my head in shame
shout out the sorrow of
the one named major joseph cummings
the long walk will never stop
~julie cummings
the major is not related to me, I just found his name in the book
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