c Monte Dolack graphic rights reserved

Thumbs
c1999  j bluewolf
 

Uncle said,
 "Walk, don't stand.
People respect that.
Cover the miles in your mind,
 don't worry about rides,
see it all--
 and remember."

Stretched out, this land is large,
an Eagle's wing in full sweep.
I've crawled across the shell
of this Turtle
so many times
it's shrunk down...
but in the beginning
the horizon seemed unreachable.

Every summer
I watched my father
ride his thumb to Albuquerque.
Studying psychology and Navajo
he felt no shame
thrusting his thumb into a reckless wind,
 tumbleweeds
 shapeshifting to automobiles.

Head thrown back,
sideways thumb arrogantly cocked
over the shimmering blacktop heat
of an Oklahoma summer,
Uncle liked to show me
how he would stand,
riding the roustabout railroad
to Louisiana oil rigs.
 
The land was mine
but miles weren't easy.
 Wichita Falls doesn't welcome thumbs,
you walk limit to limit.
Two days in a Barstow sun,
with half a canteen and no hat,
will deepen your brown.
Don't freeze in a Flagstaff whiteout,
use your last quarter
 to warm in front of an open laundromat dryer.
You can drown
on a rainy night near Portland,
even with a million headlights
 passing your plastic-draped sleeping bag.

   But there were no boundaries, no limits,
no set time to leave or arrive,
no fear.

The Feds,
looking for a way to stop our
Movement,
never realized...
all they had to do
 was take our
thumbs!

Route 66

When we turn east, I relax.
It always happens that way.
Too much childhood hovers
in the air above 66
for me to remain long lost....
As we endure Mojave, brave Needles sun,
breathe Williams pine,
look past Hopi toward Windowrock--
my blood rushes for high desert!
Even from Gallup
my minds-eye sees
Sandia sunrise sandpainting the world.
Wife says, "it smells old."
Grandparent rocks shoulder each other along plateau's edge,
wrapped tightly in stone blankets
they watch us dance.
Near Black Mesa,
beside the Rio Grande,
we gather ant rocks
to give life to our gourds.
Twin rainbows witness our morning prayer.
I come to offer my blood,
to savor this colored land...
adobe shape, afternoon rain, boundless sky
and more stars than sand.
A moon blued Shiprock wraps me,
tight in a Four Corners blanket.
Riding this old southern snake--
44 years in each coiled twist,
thunder pumps my heart,
a rain of memory fills the wash
where lightning illuminates the dreams
of a child
of the "Mother of Roads."

Indin Parts
c 1999 j bluewolf

When we met
she said she had "a little Cherokee"
in her.
I asked what his name was.
She looked at me funny.
"No, I'm part Indian."
"Which part?"
She marched away, red hair bouncing,
looking for a "real" Indin to talk to.

There are many trees like her,
 part pine or cedar,
who don't remember the depth of their roots,
 don't weep at the relentless
 falling
of related needles,
 don't worry about lips losing language,
Elder bones freezing,
 suicide, commodities, per capita checks, gaming compacts,
alcoholic families converting to crank.

Real trees want to know.
Want to live
the history of every rambling ring,
 understanding
scorched black cones peeled back--
reveal new seed.

   Her eyes have not teared
with the blessings of sunrise smoke,
circle of hands
 stretched from bright blankets,
sleepy-eyed children tossing tobacco
into a morning fire.
 Her freckled shoulders are not red
from hunching in the dark
sun rocks singing,
steam stinging her nose.
Drums don't beat in her veins.
She counts her family on her fingers.

Counting parts,
the circle of Indin
 is formed of four--
mind, heart, body, spirit.

 
 
 
 
 
Fluting Two Worlds
c 1999 j bluewolf
 
 

Cottonwood leaves whisper
children swim laughing
one flutes.
                                  girl giggles
                                    breeze flushing her cheek--
                                         listens.
Drum echos the canyon
high above shawled dancers--
one flutes.
                                       maiden turns
                                       firelight flushing her cheek--
                                        listens
Songs of binding ties
beyond the lodge entrance--
one flutes.
                                               woman waits inside
                                        passion flushing her cheek--
                                        listens.
Aunts' support shoulders
squatting among the willow--
one flutes.
                                        mother coos
                                       newbirth flushing her cheek--
                                    listens.
Relatives carrying bones
mountains embrace him--
no one flutes.
                                  widow sobs
                                       sorrow flushing her cheek--
                                       listens.
Her life slip toward shadow.
moccasins step south dreaming--
one flutes.
                                       spirit dancing
                                       starlight flushing her shadow--
                                       listens.

Cinnamon Toast Medicine
c 2000 j bluewolf

Part One

My nightmares
are afraid of cinnamon toast.
Grandma says
the sweet does it with the spice.

She hustled us from damp sheets
when we awoke,
pale and running from spirits.
As I got older, and roused myself--
I'd find her gathering her skirts by warm coals,
drinking coffee, smelling of spice.

She won't admit to bad dreams,
though I know she cries for her father,
who was part horse
but died in an automobile fight.

I didn't know him in this world,
yet hear his voice from the next.
He tells me not to fear
and to put the cinnamon on thick--
whispers that “poverty is passing for Indins,
while the color of our world
is getting lighter every day,
nut brown bleaching to latte'--
and what will be left
in another seven generations
only the wind knows.”
 

Part Two

My dreams overflow with language,
a babel of three, competing for my mind.
At 51, I don't need cinnamon toast too often,
except when I read Owens or Alexie.
Their work is a poltice drawing my poisons,
shadows that push and prod me
toward cliff's edge,
urging me to jump
for fear, for anger, for grief.

Mixedbloods should be able to sit above it, enit?
We don't reflect in a Fullblood mirror
that charges a scalper's price
for Native Dreams.

Getting no discount for their suffering,
generations shuffle in endless sacrifice--
dancing in this Earth-Round-House.
I stand at the door, neither fully in, nor out.
nodding my head to the drum,
shifting from foot to foot,
smelling of cinnamon.