Final Poem for Native American Heritage Month and Standing Rock

We are ending Native American Heritage Month in a few days, and throughout the entire month, militarized police have been violently attacking the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, leaving hundreds with hypothermia and injuries, especially one elder in cardiac arrest, one young woman with a torn retina, and one young woman with an arm that she may lose, even after several surgeries. This poem is one I wrote about rivers and the concept of river, and perhaps it will offer a different way of looking at these great entities of creation beyond the concept of commodity or barrier to profit. Too often we forget that water is truly life.

WHAT RIVER SAYS

The Cherokee call me Long Man,

yun wi gun hi ta,

because my body stretches and unravels

with my head in the mountains

and my feet resting in the ocean.

I constantly speak words of wisdom

to those who can understand me—

fewer every day.

It takes a quality of attention

fit for magicians or poets.

I have much to tell those

who expend the time and energy to listen.

I have seen so many things.

I know the history of rain

intimately, leaning on the world

to feel it on my skin

and take it inside me

to swell my body. Maybe,

they should have called me Long Woman.

I remember when

the mountains were home only to gods.

I knew your ancestors,

now tangled in the ground.

I swallowed my share and more.

I have seen innumerable generations

living into their deaths.

I am acquainted with the bones of earth,

ancient as the word of God

and stronger by far.

Men have tried forever

to change me and chain me,

but I still wander where I will

when I grow tired of being tame.

I remain the promise of tomorrow,

the hope of new growth

that haunts the night with hypnotic murmurs

and softens the edge between act and dream.

When all hope has fled,

come to me.

Published in TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism, 2015

Dreaming Fox--A Poem for Native American Heritage Month

I wanted to put another poem up for Native American Heritage Month, and I decided to post this one.

I’ve always taken for granted that I could see more of the natural world’s plants and animals, even in the city, than most other people I know here, who seem totally oblivious to a pair of golden eagles stunt-flying on the thermals overhead or the waddle of a beaver across a grassy knoll to his creek home. I know I owe this gift to my grandmother and aunt and uncle who taught me when I was young to pay attention to the land around me and its plant and animal inhabitants—and thus vastly enriched the rest of my life.

When the rest of my family erupted in chaos and violence, focusing on the natural world of which I was a part saw me through the pain and desperation. Nothing pulls me out of despair like going to water to see the dawn in and watch the dance of the real world behind the shabby drapery of made-up, pretend, commodified daily existence. 

DREAMING FOX

Early on a Sunday walking

past a bank drive-through on a hill

above a creek running through the city

surrounded by a narrow band of wild growth

I see him and freeze

big dog fox stopped at the sight of me

one foot still in the air

tail of fire just brushing the uphill

shrubbery from which he came

we stand and stare

unable to move or breathe

his eyes staring into mine

against a background

murmur of morning traffic

neither of us supposed to be here

not me at this just-after-dawn-in-summer hour

not him in the middle of the city

curiosity more than fear

behind his big eyes I had always

thought foxes had small close-together eyes

from cartoons or wildlife films or something

like that but his are set attractively

distant from each other

an intelligent face staring

me down wanting me to turn

and run from the predator

he must have a den nearby

with mate and kits so he will stand

against me forever

if need be he must be afraid

he knows humans are dangerous

to his kind especially

if he lives here in the heart of the city he must

dread the moment he will have to take

me on so many times his size

and probably with noisy metal weapons

against his needle teeth and claws

feeble in the world of cars motorcycles sirens

thrown rocks gunshots in this neighborhood he will

do it nonetheless I watch him set down his foot

lightly the muscles of his haunches tense

to spring in one final hopeless suicidal

attack to damage and drive me off

away from the den down among the brush

on the banks of the urban creek

hidden deep among the willows

I wish I could follow him down there

to see his mate and babies

he is right to fear me and attack

that human curiosity impulse to know

to somehow own experience fatal

to him if someone less harmless sees

and follows he hunkers down on his tail

silent no warning growl prepared

to launch himself through the air at my throat

only he will not be able to leap

that high from the lower ground

where he stands he will have to settle

for chewing my waist and legs

taking pity on us both

I back away slowly still

holding his vulpine gaze he turns back

to the shelter of the woods with only

one long look back

to make sure I don’t follow

to make sure I was real

one flash of movement and all trace

of red gone only undergrowth he might

never have stood and stared into my human eyes

so early on a Sunday morning

in the heart of the city

leaving us both to wonder

if we dreamed he of a human

who did no harm me of a fox

who did not run improbable dreams

intertwined

© Linda Rodriguez 2016

Native American Heritage Month--A Poem for Standing Rock and #NoDAPL

I've been so frigging mad about the news coverage of the Standing Rock protests. The media, for the most part, can't be bothered to go out and actually investigate what's actually going on. No lattes out on the prairie. So they just take the word of the lying sheriff and governor. After NPR's recently, I just blew, and my poor husband had to listen. Finally, I decided to try to tame the anger in form. So, a sestina for Standing Rock.

NO MORE (SESTINA FOR STANDING ROCK)

I have run out of time

and patience with news coverage so

lazy and biased with a bow

always to

the company owners, powerful and rich,

and to what they want said.

It never matters what my people have said

again and again. Every time

government or corporate forces, so

violent and powerful, require us to bow

in submission, and we won't, the rich

dictate what's broadcast—and written, too.

When I try to explain to

well-meaning white friends, they've said,

“But disorder!” to which I reply each time,

“But oppression!” and sow

seeds of doubt in their comfort. The bough

must break some time and dump the rich

into the mud with the rest of us. The rich

tapestry of cultures that we are can't be reduced to

only WASP—Native, Black, Latino said

to be lesser, negligible, inferior. Each time

I hear this, the fire of anger grows within, so

hot and fierce. It's time for the ruling class's farewell bow.

So long we've stayed peaceful. Soon, it may be time for bow

and lance and rifle, if the rich

can't be compelled to lift the boot, too

sure of their own power to listen to what we've said.

They don't realize it, but they're running out of time.

In arrogance, they rip the fabric of the nation we sew

back together in new, shiny shapes, so

colorful, strange, stronger, tied with the bright bow

of human dignity and rich

gleam of equality and justice. To

those who've always had power and said

to the rest of us, “Give us time

to dole out bits of freedom,” we say, “No,” so...

You've run out of time. Now, reap what you sow.

We'll no longer bow in submission to

the demands of the white and rich. Hear what we've said.

© Linda Rodriguez 2016

Enough Already, 2016!

I have had it. I'm fed up with this year. We won't even talk about all the talented, loved figures who've died this year. There are always deaths like that, but this year, we were hit hard in this arena. Aside from the Angel of Death hovering over our favorite writers, actors, musicians, and other artists, this year has been downright ugly and mean—one could even say, nasty.

The election has thrown its grotesque, sinister shadow over the entire year, dredging up thousands of people who are happy to do and say—nay, shout—things that insult and demean whole swathes of the citizenry—immigrants, women, Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, Natives, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA people, teachers, veterans, journalists, and just about every other segment of society you can think of that isn't privileged White male. We've had one candidate running who's made no secret of his admiration for ruthless dictators and intention to become one himself and another candidate who's faced accusation and investigation after accusation and investigation, only to be repeatedly found innocent but tarred with the constant scandals, and we've had a national media who've falsely focused on those faux scandals while giving the would-be dictator a pass and billions of dollars of free publicity.

Every day, we think we've seen a new low in this election, surely the lowest it could ever go, only to have a newer, lower low replace the old one in the next day or so. We've watched Nazis, white nationalists, and the Ku Klux Klan roll out from under the rocks beneath which they'd had to hide for decades and parade openly with swastikas and Confederate flags in the would-be dictator's rallies, unashamedly retweeted by him and his campaign. The election has become a sickness infecting the entire country.

Then, there are the extrajudicial executions of people of color by modern, militarized police, the same police that our would-be dictator intends to use as shock troops to impose his will on the country, rounding up millions of people “from the first hour of [his] presidency,” the same police who enthusiastically endorse this man who openly brags about breaking laws and disregarding our constitution.

Add to all this, the standoff at Standing Rock, where Native nations from all over the United States have gathered to protect the Missouri River and their own sacred lands from destruction by a rapacious corporation. I have friends and relatives with the Oceti Sakowin Water Protectors, who are being attacked by dogs, pepper-sprayed, maced, teargassed, beaten, shot at, dragged from ceremonies and sweat lodges, strip-searched in public view, and caged, naked, in dog kennels by militarized police from seven different states—sort of a preview of what many of us in this country could expect at the hands of the would-be dictator if we're foolish enough to give him that power over us. When young students must throw themselves physically on top of elders to protect their more fragile bodies and bones from beatings with billy clubs and batons by men in law enforcement uniforms and combat gear, it seems the final straw in an ugly, hateful year.

The election will be over in a couple of days, and I hope and pray that the majority of voters in this land prove themselves to be sane and decent. But that will not do anything about the many others who have proved not to be either. As a country, we'll still have to deal with them, especially since they talk loudly about riots and violence if their dictator doesn't get the chance to rule us all. We'll still be dealing with militarized police who act like an occupying army in their own country. (I've had combat vets tell me they never rolled out in Afghanistan or even Fallujah in all the equipment these guys are using against their own citizens.) My relations will still be standing firm and peacefully as they're attacked, humiliated, and caged out in North Dakota. I want all of this nightmare to be over with the election, but I know it won't be. 2016, hateful year that it's been, seems determined to carry on its ugliness and hate into 2017.

Against this, I try to impose the facts that my husband and I are happier than we've ever been in our own private life, even as the public world seems more dangerous to us and more frightening, that I've come through a dark, physically threatening personal ordeal and am heading back to normal, that I have so many wonderful friends of all colors, races, ethnicities, classes, religions, and all other backgrounds who believe in the same love and tolerance that I do, that I do believe—in the long run—goodness, love, truth, and justice eventually triumph over hate and bigotry (though I fear that sometimes the long run is awfully long), that there are an awful lot of us working to bring decency and equality back into our public sphere.

2016, you've made it downright hard to remember these good truths, but I keep reasserting them against your miserable meanness. I can hardly wait to see your backside, nasty year. Good riddance, even though we won't be rid of most of your pestilent detritus. But it won't be the first time in this country's history that we've had a big moral cleanup job to face after a horrible paroxysm, i.e., mass deportations of citizens of Mexican descent in the 1930s, the camps for Japanese-Americans in the 1940s, the McCarthyism of the 1950s, the violent segregationists of the 1960s, and more before and after those. Every so often, the worst this country contains comes out publicly. Then, the good, decent folks, who usually spend their time quietly minding their own business, have to come out and clean house—and then work hard to mop up the resulting mess. But we always do. I remind myself of that.

2016, you've done your worst, and it's been pretty bad, but we decent folks of the U.S. are coming after you finally. We've had enough, and we're bringing our brooms, mops, and disinfectants with us. Your time has finally come.