Slowdown Throwdown Revisted

 In Response to: I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move

Sometimes when our youth comes to an end, it feels as though we are watching a natural disaster unfold in front of us. Growing out of my childhood, I felt as though my golden thread was slowly being cut, fiber-by-fiber. Each tear was a rip in my heart. I watched as time drowned the roots of my younger years, loosening its grip, and its place in this world. The first root that let go was when my grandma moved back to the Philippines. She is everything I know, her hands taught me nourishment, her lips taught me silence, and her legs taught me strength. When she left, that was all reduced to memories, ignited by smelling the dusters she left behind. The lingering, but fading, scent of garlic, soil, and laundry detergent were dormant memories of life-long lessons. 

The second root was my dad moving. My father had a job opportunity in California that he desperately needed, and the price was living alone with my sister. Being solitary in your youth is a lot different than when you’re an adult. Abruptly, I had to learn how to survive. My sister was just a nursing student, and I was trying to make my way through high school. At the same time, our dog who we have had since my parents got divorced, had a metastasized tumor, was emaciated, and on death’s door. My sister would sneak medical supplies from her clinical rotations, so we could patch up our dogs' necrotizing flesh. Through heart, our dog lived comfortably for another 6 months, until she died peacefully in her sleep. When she left, she took away the toothless wide grin of a little girl too. 

Despite the heartbreaking reality of letting go of our childhood, Louise Erdrich’s poem, “I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move”, reminds me of seeing the ghosts of our past lives. She talks of how we see destruction take place, and destroy the world around it, so ruthlessly. When it is all over, we see the aftermath of what took place. To me, it’s like seeing the lessons and values you have learned in your youth reflected in adulthood. Certain sensory stimuli tease the phantoms of loving memories. Erdrich is talking of how colonialism has destroyed her land, and how she can only reminisce and dream. 

I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move

BY LOUISE ERDRICH

We watched from the house

as the river grew, helpless

and terrible in its unfamiliar body.   

Wrestling everything into it,

the water wrapped around trees

until their life-hold was broken.

They went down, one by one,

and the river dragged off their covering.

Nests of the herons, roots washed to bones,   

snags of soaked bark on the shoreline:   

a whole forest pulled through the teeth   

of the spillway. Trees surfacing

singly, where the river poured off

into arteries for fields below the reservation.

When at last it was over, the long removal,   

they had all become the same dry wood.   

We walked among them, the branches   

whitening in the raw sun.

Above us drifted herons,

alone, hoarse-voiced, broken,

settling their beaks among the hollows.

Grandpa said, These are the ghosts of the tree people   

moving among us, unable to take their rest.

Sometimes now, we dream our way back to the heron dance.   

Their long wings are bending the air   

into circles through which they fall.   

They rise again in shifting wheels.   

How long must we live in the broken figures   

their necks make, narrowing the sky.

Louise Erdrich, “I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move” from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems. Copyright © 2003 by Louise Erdrich. Reprinted with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Source: Original Fire: Selected and New Poems (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 2003)

Sacagawea

 Where is West? 

A’akkuse
Where is West

When was it that I lost the West?

The missouri river, you flow southeast 

That's when I started to lose the West 

My map got wet, I gripped on it as

The river took me by my ankles, 

and dragged me 

Further east,

further south

The river held me, I am not water, 

I am sky

And then he came

The ink bled, ineligible now 

My eyes pour 

my vision never waivers 

The faded print 

From the sky, I see our place

A bird’s eye 

 

A collection,

One of sky, one of water

My trade, the blemishes and the bruises 

My skin darkens, not by the sun 

But by the same hand 

That paints your face

the paper thins, fragile now

You take me

And with each hand print

I hear a tear 

I see shreds

nothing but fibers 

My vision blurs 

Before I close my eyes, 

What was the map, 

Was all I saw

As he left another mark within me 

My eyes are dull and empty

Where, is West?

Where is West II

In my hands, I can not see the curves of the rocks 

My fingernails hold no traces of dirt 

My jaw aches and is shut tight 

My legs and feet swollen 

I see where I lay 

I see the border of the floor, where it meets the walls 

I see the vertical columns of the logs in the wall

higher

I want to see the peaks of the trees

I want to see the wrinkles of a’ni ki, ana 

How it rises from dirt into a mighty figure 

Standing proud, standing tall 

Higher 

I want to see the moon shining down

glistening 

Like ripples on a still lake 

Leaving quiet footsteps

Higher 

how the sun lovingly hugs the horizon 

As it falls down into the Earth 

And the world hums to slumber 

But I am stuck on the ground 

I crawl into the corner of my mind 

And I can not find it 

The shapes of the Earth somewhere

I can not feel Her breath 

I can not hear the hum of Her heart 

I feel a throbbing in my core, 

I trace my hand on the walls of my womb,

An extension of me 

It is loose and sore 
And changes day by day

West

The water is still before it streams 

The earth is solid, before it cracks 

The hearth is cold, before it ignites 

The wind is quiet, before it flies 

The land searches its end 

And you find a new beginning 

A beginning of water 

My body is tranquil

My breath is paused 

Until I reach the edge of the land

The West water, is vast 

It runs endlessly, and has no direction 

The water reflects the blue of the sky 

And it seems as though you are floating 

You are soaring in an endless blue 

You are West 

Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte

Dear Susan

A plant deprived of the sun
Can not change it’s location
Nor its surroundings
It can not change the time
Nor when it will rain

Our people deprived of our life
Can not sing our songs with pride
Can not change those around us
Can not call for earth, air, water, nor fire
Can not summon destruction

A plant deprived of the sun
Will be in the shade and learn
To reach the sun
It must forget its shape
And break through the canopy to touch the light

Our people deprived of our life
In this western world will learn
To prosper in adversity
We must forget our body
eat their bread, and drink their wine
don their clothes, mimic their hair
laugh in their parties, learn from their people
And break through the limits to be the light



Return 

I hear the song that echoes inside me
Take off your dresses, stretch your tired feet
Let down your hair, show your true skin
Run back to the place the heart of “begin”

Chasing education, was not in vain
Thirteen-hundred, i’ll rid your pain
I'll rise with the sun, outlive the moon
And keep our beating hearts in tune

I’ll protect you, be your shield
We will wake to flourishing fields
I'll be the sun, the light for the seeds
Shine so bright, and blaze disease

Now you grow, not in hiding
Beautifully blooming, the warmth guiding
I will share, what I have learned
And soon you’ll find, a flame that burns
A glow starting inside you to ignite what my father tried to
brilliant, when you shine on others
Golden hues, brings sisters and brothers