Elegy by A Cree Sojourner (poem)

I am not afraid of being poor, being homeless…I’ve done that…

I am not afraid of breaking ribs (twice), my neck, my ankle, my skull…

been there done that…and feeling much better now

I am not afraid of having a gun pointed at me (3 times)

cause only one ever actually pulled the trigger…and he missed

I am not afraid of my mother going away, or my father or all my grandparents…

for those things happened a long time ago

I cannot say if in his lifetime, my father ever knew freedom

but in mine…he is free

It could be true that like history, it is by now well-established

that I am, as they say: an open book

and thankfully subject to revision

brother can you spare a dime?

hey man, change comes from within!

There is no longer fear of a broken heart or abandoned love

I know what those things are

I confess to the mercenary intentions

of having her soft lips on mine

there, I said it

what am I but one among this rogue species

like the mountains I have been shaped by time

in fact, I am here because of those long-gone, graceful ones

who somehow walk beside me still

in memory, in spirit

guiding me safely

through the no man’s land of my own good intentions,

to yet more meaningful ways of being

helping locate a measure of grace

during damp arthritic coastal mornings

learning to care for this temple bruised and battered through 43 winters,

grasping that there are surely now more sunsets

in the rear-view mirror than lie before me…

(but you never know)

yes, their presence comforts me

as I experience these fearsome markers of time

most days I have transcended my ancient wounds

free of that kind of pain

though the psychic tissue of scars will always remain,

just out of sight

clung to and kept in my own place of sacred things

summoned when needed to inform, to illuminate,

to be together during your own long dark night of the soul

for why else are we here?

and I stand shoulder to shoulder with front-line helpers and healers

who do the heavy lifting,

who understand that we will only heal together or die one by one

alone as individuals

as a man of the plains it is ironic that I am once again at the frontier

only this time at the borderline of the imagination

standing opposed to ones who elevate human constructs above the natural world

people unable or unwilling to understand

that the way you think about something changes the way it works –

I oppose worshipers at the altar of the holy market

with their inflationary interest in histories’ latest empire

they seem induced by some archaic voice stranded in time

a voice spouting authoritative versions of events

tenure-tracked versions of events

second-hand, borrowed and stolen knowledge

with concerns somehow vested

in salacious accounts of quote-unquote history

ideas are the currency in my trade

in this most crucial reclamation project

for some reason

the challenge seems to be to respect the ancestors and celebrate the living

do you see that it is the very rugged and elemental nature of this hard land

that makes the Indian heart and spirit so pliable?

It’s tough love from our first mother

I have no illusions of permanence and little time for regret,

despair is a sin against the imagination in places like this

my destiny is no longer shaped by others without shame

or without reverence for the things I am…I am the elements…

my life is a subterranean call, no – it is a demand for justice

I am not…but the way? -

the way is righteous

the truth is righteous

even in the city

I know places where can I sit alone among stones polished by mild-mannered rain

I can always locate a vantage point to watch the crows

and be moved by their nightly, spectral pilgrimage

through the great nation that is the sky

even in the city

I hear creator

in my daughter tapping keys on a piano in the next room

there are stations, thresholds and bridges

constructed by others before me that I cross

to arrive in places I could not possibly have gotten to on my own

I keep frequent company with other ways of thinking

road men and matriarchs who have all walked the long road

when necessary developed other modes of orienting themselves in

social and spiritual space

I seek counsel with those happily immersed in old-growth forests of the mind

who may yet teach me other ways

of interacting at all times with the earth itself

I am touched by these warriors of the heart and road

in this company there is space for you

in this company may you find watershed thoughts

of the sacred heart of the world –

come know what love is really like

and dream of worlds to come

© 2013 Champsteen Publishing