For Veterans' Day, for all veterans, for the American Indians veterans, for Michael Two Roads and for Tasunke Numpa, I have written the below poem.
A Veteran of Foreign Wars
The grandfathers say
My beloved son
live this way.
A man arises before the sun
he goes outside and as the light comes
facing east
he prays, "thank you, Creator, for this good day."
Ceasefire ends as Israeli tanks
shell Palestinians Newstalk KGO 74
bringing you up to the minute headlines.
She stirs beside him, her breath at his back .
He shuts off the radio
Outside, the mockingbird greets this good day.
That’s Walter. His favorite tree died and so I cut it
down. Now I detect an angry tone in his song.
Maybe you’re projecting, she says.
He rises and pulls on his jeans
Takes tobacco from his bureau, walks through the dark kitchen, off the back step.
The grandfathers say all my relatives
Mitakuye Oyasin
I have observed in my own fifty years that the birds talk to us
and find us rude for not talking back.
But she is not a bad white woman
Sometimes her spirit catches the light like dew. Sometimes life touches her.
My god I am lonely for home, where the air and land know me, call me beloved son.
Outside, his chest, arms, feet
Bare. The air is damp, the grass is cold. The dirt below it has congealed with rain and
no mind there says my beloved son
I hold you
He faces the sun’s direction
Where the fence, the neighbor’s stucco house, the bank and the
freeway will become visible.
He lights the cigarette and passes it over his left shoulder, his
right, behind him, before him, up, and down.
Grandfather, thank you for this good day.
I would close my eyes and remember the prairie at
this time of the year so bluewhite with cold, the sun a rising red
yolk over the frost sharp grass. I would become the frost shards and the old grass
and the hollow bones of my uncle under the grass. I would join
you for this moment, all my relatives, the dark dirt, so peaceful.
But no. You want me here.
Walter the mockingbird flies across the airspace before his heart, arcs upward into the pear tree. He
is angry.
The bird who talked to me in Vietnam was encouraging.
Cheer up, he told me. The men murdering each other in that crater
From which you just now ran away
Are your life.
I was a great coward
And a great warrior that day.
I, a medic, who wanted to cure all the children on Pine Ridge
Like my grandfather I rose from the grass behind the enemy
The grandfathers, the Teyotitonwan
Say my beloved son, live this way
I am Oglala
Clear the way
Let me go first
I tricked the enemy
I rose from the grass
I fired and fled like a shadow
Hidden in smoke
I fired in, the men caught within the enemy’s circle fired out
The enemy we caught them between us
We killed
I a medic
Held the dying boys
The U.S. Army’s manual said to give each dying man a shot of morphine and walk away.
But this boy called me mother
He said hold me, mother, I am so scared
It’s dark, and cold
I held him while he died
I am a warrior
I am a medic
I am a mother
I am Oglala.
I wish I could forget that day.
Thank you, Grandfather, for this memory
For this life
These gifts I have not yet learned how to value
How to use.
Grandfather, you say live this way
What way shall I live with this lymphoma
That came from breathing Agents in Vietnam
Am I doing the right thing, Wakon tonka?
My two little children, whom I love above all life
They keep the blood warm in me
While the lymphoma chills me
It will be my death.
I have bad days
I have good days.
I play the piano at night
On the piano a vase
Holds the eagle feathers that have come to me
Over the years
I would come home from work
And find one on the screen door, attached to a bag of tobacco.
At first I hated the reminder
Just when I thought I could forget
Why can’t you let me alone
What was it for, grandfather?
What was it for, my friend?
My kid’s got a basketball game
Grandfather, what way shall I live?
Raise your children
And then go home
You will not be a pediatrician
You will not cure all the children on Pine Ridge
You might live in a tin trailer and teach school
You might be an old man
With 54 eagle feathers on a piano
In a trailer
Outside of Kyle.
Where the dawn is cold as a gouge
Air sharp as a knife in the lungs.
She is beside me in the blue dawn
Wrapped in a blanket
She offers me coffee.
I can hear her mind
She says I will miss you terribly when you are gone.
I will drive across the country and visit your grave.
I wish you were satisfied somehow.
The grandfathers say
Live as Lakhota.
Pray for everyone.
Live for your people.
Hoka hey.