Poetry

Inventory for a Prairie Child

Bare feet in a single file

walked Wichita, Wawatosa

Winnetka, Muskegon, Kankakee  

and Oconomowoc.
 

In the Northwest territory

we swam the Sandman

fished the Wabash

canoed the Kickapoo

tented on original prairie

in teepees called Shawnee, Pawnee, Waukegan.

We excavated

a mound and found

wampum, shards, arrowheads

and fool’s gold

panned with a garden hose

while we fought Arapaho and Navajo

We pow-wowed by firelight

smoked our peace pipe

packed with cornsilk

cut our wrists and rubbed them,

blood brothers in a circle,

doused campfire Indian style,

filed home on the balls of our feet

past wigwams of field corn.

Inheritance

In the breakfront of our memory
I’ve framed my favorite heirloom,
A recipe for tanning buffalo hide.
In dainty cursive script it reads:
Flesh and pare the green hide
With a flat bone or knife
(if your husband can spare one)
cover the fresh side with
brains
blood
liver
grease and the contents of the
gall bladder.
Work in thoroughly near
fire
or sun
and when the hide has dried

rub it over a straight log

‘til it is soft.

Should you wish it hairless you

may use lime and smoke it through

One skin covers two with ease.

Rhoda McKenna Campbell

Aunt Rhode blinded by snow
blown off balance by the wind
and always afraid near Wind River
stumbled toward the ledge and slipped
a chinook drowned her cries
snow erased her footprints
and it took us hours to find her

                     .   .   .

Jake carved your tombstone by himself
seraphim all head and wings
wings might have helped you when you fell
I bring you bittersweet Aunt Rhode
stand near your feet and read

RHODA      STURDY      PRAIRIE       WIFE
SLEEPS   HERE   BENEATH   WIDE   SKIES
SHE SANG TO US WITH CLOSED THROAT
AND      WEPT      WITH      OPEN      EYES

Devoradora

Grandpa, paterfamilias,
Drove the Conestoga
Grandma, musket on her shoulder,
strode beside the team
pulled the harness when they lagged
talked them over streams

switched flies with buffalo grass
whistled back at meadow larks
and stuffed tiger lilies
in her open blouse

threw herself on the ground
fired at least ten rounds
when ambushed by the Sioux
gave a warwhoop when they fled

planted poppies and periwinkle
when they built the sod house
carried her children like trophies
opened the school herself
when Jake was six

designed the church
chose the preacher
led the choir
and looked about for more.

Grandpa, slow and scholarly,
Read aloud in Latin
Rocked alone on the new porch
Watched her works with pride
Until one day she gulped him whole.

Prairie Signs

When cattle snuff the air 

          and turn their heads to leeward

          sheep refuse to leave the pasture 

          peacocks climb the trees and scream 

          and hens chant

You must hurry to

         pull in the laundry 

         latch the barn door

         clear the cyclone passage
         slam the windows 

         gather the children

here comes a goose drowner

In Dakota Territory
 

Jump-hunting ducks by Cedar Creek

we found a willow scaffold

corpse lofted high on a litter

long black hair still shiny and fresh

and dark slashes in the air

two barn swallows skimming

back and back and back

Scalping the warrior

to line their nest with his hair

Jake’s Dream

Sight unseen I traded eighty acres
Illinois moraine, so rich we just
dropped seeds and stepped back fast,
for a section of Wyoming.

Moved our whole world in a box car,
wife and self and our two bairns,
everything we had squeezed in,
wagons, mules, cows, dog, food,
fodder, roses, peonies, Limoges.

Unloaded at a whistle-stop,
struck north from west of nowhere.
That desert was so lonesome
one mule lay down, stretched out,
just plain died, that homesick.

Reached Wind River late September,
melted snow for drinking water,
and nothing grew but sagebrush.
It was a place to starve.

                      2.

but the sky reached out forever
tongues of flame lit the horizon
and standing on our mountain crest
I fell in love with space.

Staking the Land Claim

It is an angular night

on this bed of wood

which has never known

deerskin

feathers

linen

or the outline of you

by dark my body crimps itself on maple

then straightens for the Sagamon dawn

and reveille for a bob-o-link.

Levelling
 

Dear Mother,

         After the crash
         when the banker
         burrowed in his safe
         resisted even food
         voices shrilled
         playmates moved overnight
         ochre dust form Oklahoma
         blew twilight at noon

         Only you walked untouched
         wearing French perfume
         gliding through doors
         on slip-trails of black chiffon.
         You passed each bed to beg a kiss
         as you fled to your dance
         leaving a scented and fluttering
         depression in each child.

         One morning at crow-caw
         I stole your perfume
         poured Coty down the hot-air shaft
         until clouds of scent
         billowed as far as the garden
         where I buried your bottle
         and wrote your name on a brick.

Generation

Astride the balustrade
we slid to meet our great-aunt Dee,
the one who called a leg
the pedal appendage.
In starched white she rested
at anchor in the bay window,
refusing the fireside
until our tea was set.
She appraise us with cataract-blue eyes
and thrummed. “My dears, when I was a girl we rode a balustrade side-saddle.”

Accommodation at Valladolid

I need your scissors
to plunge them into my sixteenth century Spanish heart
and impale it on the chapel door.

Don’t worry, love,
the gore you see
is alizarin crimson and gesso.
We Spaniards have always used it
when we ran out of blood.

My heart itself,
stronger than flesh,
will endure as late Iberian Gothic.

Why do I need your scissors?
to cut a template for a bas-relief
to spend my rage on stone.

Diagnosis

Unconscious,
          she let her car shiver, lurch,
          and carrom off a stone wall

Francesca,
         conceived in Rimini,
         named for Paolo’s princess,
         eldest daughter, headstrong
         as only an eldest child can be.
         Limp in a med school bed,
         x-rayed, microscoped, scanned,
         awakes, hears the diagnosis,
         cries,”How does it help me that
         Alexander, Caesar, and Dostoevsky
         Suffered this same lightning dark?

What can you say
        To your child who needs you now?
        In the wild new place  
        that is my head
        Words of love can’t penetrate.

“I am alone inside this skull.”

For Mia, Our Youngest

At eight o’clock
shadow pulls her arm
to the edge of the yard
and her shirt becomes a sail
to blow her through the rainbow
tilting as far as she dares
she lifts her chin to the wind
and tacks like a boat

Loping down hill at nine
off-center pendulum stride
he surprises her at the foot
and she gasps
“I looked up, Dad, and saw you swinging from a star”.

Sometime after midnight
drenched in half-remembered pain
gasping for breath
eyes wild and black
she wakes in the dark
clawing curtains in her mind.