Heart River Undertow - Excerpts

Dyslexia

Is dog God
through a child’s eyes,
whose world is reversed,
has to draw pictures
to create words,
to avoid eternal alienation,
punishment for being
made to feel stupid,
unable to spell God
the way they saw it.

Guilt was before I could walk,
cramped my belly,
like when I drank foul water
from caves beneath my house,
where sewer pipes wept stalactites.

Bravery camouflaged my truth,
conquered solitude’s shadow,
where death was a word
I couldn’t read or write.

Kindergarden was about red stars,
not gold, not quarters from Grand-dad,
but playing in dew-soaked hollows
where sinkholes hid my secrets.

My first day to first grade,
reluctance filled my footsteps.

Frozen in place,
fear clasped my brother’s hand.

No one knew,
certainly not my first grade teacher,
back-stroking to survive
in a sea of eighty children.

III

After school, alone in tall trees,
leaves hid earth,
warm sun was not jaundice,
and lies hooted like owls.
My wings yearned for a nest
to feed my hunger to read,
to be like others.

Immigrant

(In Phoenix construction business, illegal workers from Mexico are
often referred to as amigos. This is a story about Pablo, my amigo.)

Standing on decorative rock,
street side of Home Depot,
my amigo points calloused fingers
at his chest, layered in shirts,
wearing rock-torn shoes,
hands powdered concrete white,
eyes thirsty for work.

My pickup power window opens.
“Concrete?”

“Sí.”

“Block walls?”

“Sí.”

I flash six fingers. He holds up eight.
“You rapido Gonzales?”

He smiles. “Sí, yo trabajo rapido.”

The contract’s sealed.
My door locks click, and in he climbs,
tucking swollen hands under his folded arms.

“Amigo, you have number?”

Shrugging, he replies, “No comprendo.”

I raise my voice over freeway traffic.
“Social Security numero?”

Shoulders collapse, his doubting eyes wet with fear.

I look at him. “What’s your name? Como te llamas?”

His eyes catch mine. “Sí. Pablo.”
“Pablo, you hablar English?”

Shaking head left and right,
thumb and index finger touching, he mumbles,
“Poquito.”

I smile. “Mas dinero; you hablar English.”
He sits in silence as I drive
through cold sunrise.

I think about his struggle to cross
the desert border where death waits
for those who fall in thirst,
where coyotes who guide
are prepared to flee.

He must have run through exploding dust
as desert winds assaulted his eyes and throat,
his sweat a thin mud coat on the coyote’s run, fleeing
poverty to hope... de pobreza a esperanza.

My tires roar on concrete
as the radio plays Xmas music.

Pablo stares away.
his tears wiped
with hardened hands.
Pablo points to radio, “Navidad...
No he mirado mi familia en siete anos.”

His tears bead like pearls on woolen sleeves
como perlas en mi pasto.

I'm Not Thatwhiteman

Look at me!
Do you see my Celtic father,
or my dark eyed mother,
part Indian, part nobody,
her father an orphan, a child slave,
who didn’t know his roots?

My brother was like her,
dark eyes, black hair,
always aching
for white acceptance.

He felt Native
souls in his bones,
talked to others
with eyes of a wolf.

When I meet people,
no one ever asks,
“Are you American Indian?”

They only see a white man,
but I wasn’t born white.
I was taught to be white,
taught to do what whites do,
taught white was different,
like God.

Mother’s Native blood
laughed at this lie
helped me feel the earth breathe,
to disavow the Manifest Destiny,
white Anglos’ ordained design,
to grow democracy on others’ land,
even if it eliminated other races or cultures.

I’m not Thatwhiteman,
and I’m not that white missionary,
who gave Great-grandmother,
Blackfoot Woman Runs Fast,
her Christian name, Martha,
forced her to starve
on a reservation.

She ran away with a river boat pilot,
became his squaw, slaved for him
to escape hunger and bitter cold,
escape her dream haunts
about ghosts of braves,
and buffalo herds swallowed
by white man’s hunger.

I’m Martha’s great-grandson —

but I’m not Thatwhiteman

who raided Mexican landowners,
drove them off ancestors’ land,
where north of the Rio Grande
ghost marauders race up a cemetery hill
like hot summer desert heat,
to Virgin Mary standing alone,
her faded blue cement robe
surrounded by broken, weathered crosses,
erected by Mexican ancestors
now illegal in their homeland.

I know the hearts of these people
who struggle to survive,

and I’m not Thatwhiteman

that sold Africans into slavery,
leaving twenty-million black people
without hope for deliverance
from phantom pain caused
by lost birthright,
an amputated limb
their minds cannot forget.

As a young boy, growing up
in a southern white town,
black people were a mystery,
like Boo, who lived in
To Kill a Mockingbird’s
scary house,
which kids raced past
because Boo was different.
Different — the bigot’s word,
the word that makes you afraid
to be close,
to share your food and water,
to share yourself.

When I dared to sneak into Boxtown,
where the landfill and blacks lived,
it was scary
until we began playing,
and that black-white switch in our minds
snapped off,
and the one that turns on source light
snapped on,
and colors began to fade.

For as a child,
big eyes swallow truths
like cold Grapette sodas on a hot day.

Children speak without fear,
have to be hushed,
sent to their room,
have to be taught
to stay in their box.

So many boxes...
seems everyone has allowed
their coffin to live their lives.
Coffins relating to coffins,
while their human lives in darkness
before last rites are read,
and headstones set.

Don’t put me in that box!
Feel my blood,
let it comfort your fears,
let our feelings merge,
let my soul free to burn
in a billion colors,
‘cause I’m not Thatwhiteman.