Coming Home
You would think,
That the poem entitled Coming Home
Would be the last one of the set.
You might think of words describing
The joy of sleeping in your own bed,
Or phrases speaking sadness as leave your new best friends.
But,
My coming home was, different.
I came home on Day 5 of Exploring Indigenous Ways of Knowing Among the Anishinaabeg.
No,
I didn’t leave.
I didn’t make the two-day trek back east,
leaving the big sky and wide lakes of Minnesota for the rocky highlands of Eastern Pennsylvania.
Instead,
I found something that felt more like home than the brown rancher with its neatly manicured lawn and immaculate kitchen floor that I have called “home” for as long as I can remember.
My lips twitch,
Forming an ironic smile,
And I look back and remember my nervousness as I sat in the back seat of the grimy white van as the dust cleared from our caravan’s trip down the bouncy dirt driveway.
I took in the faded red boards of Annie’s home as the van slowed.
I took in the glass baubles hanging like homeless Christmas ornaments from the garden gate.
I took in the sagging metal fence that enclosed a lonesome dog run.
It all seemed a far cry from home.
A dump –
My Dad would have said.
I was hesitant to rush up and greet the ponies quietly munching grass from where they stood, chained to the fence.
I was hesitant to pet the dogs that stared hopefully up at me as ticks peeped from behind their furry ears.
I wandered the yard,
Shyly, aimlessly.
But then,
Annie called us to dinner.
As I lifted a forkful of wild rice from my plate full of watermelon so sweet that it dripped with juice,
I realized,
- I’d come home.
It wasn’t the food.
It was the generosity.
Because as the darkness of a chill Minnesota evening wrapped the tree-lined yard in a damp chill,
A steady procession of blankets, fleeces, jackets, sweaters began to march out from among the cozy paintings of Annie’s living room.
As I wrapped the fur-lined parka around my shoulders and let the hood envelope my ears,
I felt warmth that came from more than the passing of my shivers.
Gathered in the darkness by the flickering flame of a kerosene lamp,
I found a good soul.
I found my home there with a woman who welcomed me,
a stranger,
into her home
- as if I were a lifelong friend.
I don’t know how to find my way back to that home near Deer River where Anne and Annie lived.
But I’ll know it in my heart
- Forever.
Floyd Jourdain
Quiet and unsure,
I follow Bruce.
This time, it is into a small and dilapidated building.
We pass a post office where a black-haired woman sits waiting behind the counter.
We file past offices with their steady, busy, working noises.
Then the hallway opens.
We find ourselves in a small library.
The walls are lined with more than books.
I stand in place,
Turning slowly,
As I take in the posters:
The Seventh Generation
Register for the Census!
Secessions in Minnestota.
My eyes hit upon the imposing table positioned in the center of room.
I turn towards the rows of chairs,
Then the set-off table.
As we mill around, I spot the eagle feather headdress, the delicate beaded moccasins.
I know this is not my traditional library.
I am not here to look at books today.
Today, I am in the Red Lake Tribal Council Office.
Today, I am waiting for Floyd Jourdain, tribal chairman of Red Lake Nation.
As I take in the headdress with its carefully lettered placard,
(which warns me to “Please Protect from the Light”),
I hear Floyd enter.
A hush settles as we gather round the table and listen, quietly, as he begins to speak.
“Bozhoo”
- he says.
His voice has a magical, lyrical quality which seems to enthrall the listener.
He speaks of progress, of success.
Intertribal communication
Decreasing suicide
School improvements.
He speaks with pride of tribal license plates, of fishing.
It’s progress.
But as I sit with my smooth black gel pen in hand,
Furiously scribbling his phrases of hope, his statistics,
I can’t help but wonder.
Why don’t I see the progress?
I remember the trash littered roadside,
The meth lab warnings,
The high school shooting.
But as my mind’s eye recalls Nancy Kingfisher with tears slipping down her cheeks,
- It strikes me.
This is humanity.
And while I believe in Jourdain’s optimism,
And while I know that progress in being made,
day by day,
I know that he is human.
I didn’t leave this truth behind when I drove two days West to this land called “Indian Country,”
the “Land of a Thousand Lakes.”
Here, an Indian is human.
And Jourdain,
- is a politician.
Staying with Susan
The gnarled hands grip the television remote.
The light of the television flickers against the darkness of the downpour outside.
The rain pounds the roof of this small red home,
just as it must have doing for years on this spit of land that reaches out toward the great expanse of Red Lake.
Now I am here to hear the rain as I squirm uncomfortably on the seat cushions of the sagging loveseat.
The silence of the room envelopes me like the musty scent of old cigarettes that lingers in the kitchen.
Two hours in a car,
And I end up here, in a place that seems both a world away and somehow just as familiar as my grandmother’s two story bungalow that sits back from a shaded suburban Newark street.
Here, I clear my throat awkwardly,
Desperately wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.
I don’t.
Instead,
I sit and watch the bands of rain pushing across the weather map,
Again,
and again.
I wait as Susan naps and my stomach rumbles, unused to this new diet of ramen noodles, potato chips, and pop.
“Why am I here?”
Looking back,
I see learning,
And a culture,
In that silence.
These are the people and that was their life -
a small sphere encompassing a daughters’ home three doors down,
a dilapidated gas station convenience store for groceries,
and the small grungy car with a sagging roof that serves to get there.
Life was the stained dentures bobbing in the cup on the counter,
The pictures of grandchildren lining the walls,
And the faded sheet sets covered with fir trees and encasing a sinking foam mattress.
There I wasn’t among the ones who made it.
This family wasn’t quite Anton
– at least on the outside.
Powwows, feasts,
- They don’t happen every day.
Sometimes sons go out on cold and rainy days to fish for walleye on the lake.
Sometimes you eat Chef Boyardee and green beans from a can for dinner.
I saw people.
It’s not about the trash-littered yards lining the narrow street.
It’s not about the dogs running wild, some with porcupine quills poking from a sorry red nose.
There was respect there, respect of a family.
- a culture
And maybe,
By just listening,
I earned my own kind of quiet respect.
Because,
before I left,
I found Susan pressing a shining silver bracelet and a set of turquoise earrings into my tightly clasped palm.
“Don’t refuse,” she said. “It’s my gift to you.”
Gift-Giving
When I asked what kind of gift I should give,
I wanted to know what would be appropriate.
I wanted to know what would be appreciated.
I wanted a simple answer,
- Give a blanket,
- Or give sheets,
- Give a picture frame.
I wanted to know how much money to spend.
I wanted dollars and cents.
I wanted things spelled out in black and white.
There was too much ambiguity for me - the literalist, the perfectionist.
I remember flipping through the towels at J.C. Penney,
Fretting as I tried to decide between the khaki and the sage.
As I stood among the many hues,
I wondered just what would be appreciated.
But when we reached the drum ceremony,
I learned just what Bruce meant.
In the moment,
as the drum beat echoed
and the singers gave their high wailing song,
I learned
- it’s not the gift that counts.
Because I and the round-bellied old man,
recipient of my worn copy of Tuesdays With Morrie,
we both left with renewal, generosity,
in our hearts.
Remembering Indian Time
As I raced to work today,
Running yellow lights and impatiently waiting for slow-moving, trailer-toting truck in front of me with its family of four on vacation,
I suddenly remembered
-Indian Time-.
It felt like walking unexpectedly into a door that you were sure was open.
Could it only have been one week since I watched the medicine men contentedly passing the pipe, smoking away the hours as they sat on the blanket-covered cushions of the drooping sofa as I waited with bated breath for something, anything, to happen?
And so today,
I take a deep breath and remember my place in the universe.
Life happens when it is meant to happen.
Not before.
Fishing
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
The first lay limp on the bare and gritty metal floor of Darwin’s canoe with its silvery scales glinting in the sheen of the rain.
But I saw it first slipping through the lake water as its powerful tail whooshed back and forth, propelling it forward on its journey.
The next time, the fish was still, looking up at me from Nancy’s tinfoil-covered aluminum tray as I salivated in anticipation after a day of fasting.
I saw it again, this time bashing its massive head against the concrete wall of the dam in what seemed to be a desperate frustration at the insurmountable obstacle placed before it.
The other fish, I only held in my hand.
I reached out to grasp the elder’s palm as we sat,
Side-by-side,
In a white tent erected in the park for the Big Drum Ceremony.
“Bozhoo,” I said,
As I extended my firm grasp.
But as our palms slipped into place,
I found,
- a fish.
My hand seemed to swim in a moist void
As I pumped my arm,
Extending the ritual.
Soon, I fled this uncomfortable and limp sensation.
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
One lay cold on dirty boat floor.
One I held in the palm of my hand.
But both fish earned my respect.
One for its taste.
The other,
For its humility.
Preconceptions
I thought that I had written a perfect poem.
The words had come. They had felt inspired.
I saw the imagery. I felt the sensations,
- clearly
in those words.
I described the dichotomy.
I described the two rings of the powwow.
The inner wood stands,
Steeped in tradition.
The outer, Americanized semicircle of merchants, wares, and frybread,
Just like any other fair.
But as I reflected,
Slouching in my computer chair at work,
Absently twirling my newly shorn hair and thinking
(When I should have been working),
It occurred to me that I might be taking creative license as I described the world that I had glimpsed.
And Tony’s words repeated in my mind as that first sunny and chill morning in the American Indian Resource Center seemed to flash behind my tightly shut eyelids.
“Don’t vilify us,”
He said.
“But don’t, don’t, romanticize us either.”
Leaning back,
I sighed.
My poem was to begin again.
The words seemed far less certain,
Far less sure.
I felt as if I had come upon an unexpected fork in the road. I wasn’t quite sure which was the right way to turn.
My pen stumbled over words,
Over labels,
That had seemed clear-cut before.
It occurred to me to wonder,
“Who was I speaking for?”
Were they:
Indians?
Ojibwe?
Aboriginal People?
Native Americans?
American Indians?
Indigenous Peoples?
My dictionary - lost.
What words describe a bridge between two worlds?
Where craftsmen display the turquoise hanging in delicate silver strands as they proudly state, “Yes, I made this myself,”
Where the dancers stomp out rhythms in a competition, dating to an entertainment form,
Where the old men wear both eagle feathers and the American flag plastered t-shirts proclaiming them “Veterans of Foreign Wars,”
Where the woman sells her swamp tea brewed strong.
And so,
As I fumble for the words to take the panorama down,
I wonder at my place to do the job at all.
I’m trying to fill in the bare and outlined boxes.
Are you:
Caucasian?
Hispanic?
American Indian?
Please check the appropriate space.
But here is life, not a college application.
And so who am I to poke, to prod, to judge?
These are a sovereign people,
And their definition is their own.
Culture Shock
A culture.
“In a way,”
Bruce says,
“He’s learning right along with Che.”
And I look at the grown man who stands
Chatting with Toma in a ray of forest sunshine
Several yards away.
“Where has culture gone?”
I wonder.
Where has a culture gone when grown men learn alongside their sons?
A culture.
Sitting down to dinner around table that sat wedged in a corner between a tall chest of drawers and the edge of a faded kitchen counter,
My head jerks up,
Eyes wide,
As Susan speaks.
“Will you say the blessing?”
She turns and asks of me.
“Me?”
I squeak,
I glance around,
As if looking out the window to my right past the rain dripping slowly down will reveal some fresh victim to take my holy place.
Taking a deep breath,
I begin.
The words pour out in a jumble.
“I was raised Catholic,” I say.
She nods.
And I intone
“Bless us O Lord,
And these thy gifts,”
I now remember the small worn Bible that rested in proud prominence on her shelf.
A culture.
“We did a sweat lodge yesterday,”
I state
-foolishly
-naively.
I expect a response like Annie’s
-“It was the worst experience of my life during – the best afterward.”
But in this cramped kitchen,
The woman shrugs with her shoulders and her fingers, covered with a heavy sprinkling of rings, sparkle in the overhead fluorescent light.
“I’ve never been,”
She says.
And though I’m just reading body language
(Which may or may not be true),
It strikes me that this Native woman that I stand before
Was raised in a Christian home and may be looking down on Native History with scorn.
A culture of contradictions.
A culture shock for me.
Surprises,
What else could life be for?
Coming Home
You would think,
That the poem entitled Coming Home
Would be the last one of the set.
You might think of words describing
The joy of sleeping in your own bed,
Or phrases speaking sadness as leave your new best friends.
But,
My coming home was, different.
I came home on Day 5 of Exploring Indigenous Ways of Knowing Among the Anishinaabeg.
No,
I didn’t leave.
I didn’t make the two-day trek back east,
leaving the big sky and wide lakes of Minnesota for the rocky highlands of Eastern Pennsylvania.
Instead,
I found something that felt more like home than the brown rancher with its neatly manicured lawn and immaculate kitchen floor that I have called “home” for as long as I can remember.
My lips twitch,
Forming an ironic smile,
And I look back and remember my nervousness as I sat in the back seat of the grimy white van as the dust cleared from our caravan’s trip down the bouncy dirt driveway.
I took in the faded red boards of Annie’s home as the van slowed.
I took in the glass baubles hanging like homeless Christmas ornaments from the garden gate.
I took in the sagging metal fence that enclosed a lonesome dog run.
It all seemed a far cry from home.
A dump –
My Dad would have said.
I was hesitant to rush up and greet the ponies quietly munching grass from where they stood, chained to the fence.
I was hesitant to pet the dogs that stared hopefully up at me as ticks peeped from behind their furry ears.
I wandered the yard,
Shyly, aimlessly.
But then,
Annie called us to dinner.
As I lifted a forkful of wild rice from my plate full of watermelon so sweet that it dripped with juice,
I realized,
- I’d come home.
It wasn’t the food.
It was the generosity.
Because as the darkness of a chill Minnesota evening wrapped the tree-lined yard in a damp chill,
A steady procession of blankets, fleeces, jackets, sweaters began to march out from among the cozy paintings of Annie’s living room.
As I wrapped the fur-lined parka around my shoulders and let the hood envelope my ears,
I felt warmth that came from more than the passing of my shivers.
Gathered in the darkness by the flickering flame of a kerosene lamp,
I found a good soul.
I found my home there with a woman who welcomed me,
a stranger,
into her home
- as if I were a lifelong friend.
I don’t know how to find my way back to that home near Deer River where Anne and Annie lived.
But I’ll know it in my heart
- Forever.
Floyd Jourdain
Quiet and unsure,
I follow Bruce.
This time, it is into a small and dilapidated building.
We pass a post office where a black-haired woman sits waiting behind the counter.
We file past offices with their steady, busy, working noises.
Then the hallway opens.
We find ourselves in a small library.
The walls are lined with more than books.
I stand in place,
Turning slowly,
As I take in the posters:
The Seventh Generation
Register for the Census!
Secessions in Minnestota.
My eyes hit upon the imposing table positioned in the center of room.
I turn towards the rows of chairs,
Then the set-off table.
As we mill around, I spot the eagle feather headdress, the delicate beaded moccasins.
I know this is not my traditional library.
I am not here to look at books today.
Today, I am in the Red Lake Tribal Council Office.
Today, I am waiting for Floyd Jourdain, tribal chairman of Red Lake Nation.
As I take in the headdress with its carefully lettered placard,
(which warns me to “Please Protect from the Light”),
I hear Floyd enter.
A hush settles as we gather round the table and listen, quietly, as he begins to speak.
“Bozhoo”
- he says.
His voice has a magical, lyrical quality which seems to enthrall the listener.
He speaks of progress, of success.
Intertribal communication
Decreasing suicide
School improvements.
He speaks with pride of tribal license plates, of fishing.
It’s progress.
But as I sit with my smooth black gel pen in hand,
Furiously scribbling his phrases of hope, his statistics,
I can’t help but wonder.
Why don’t I see the progress?
I remember the trash littered roadside,
The meth lab warnings,
The high school shooting.
But as my mind’s eye recalls Nancy Kingfisher with tears slipping down her cheeks,
- It strikes me.
This is humanity.
And while I believe in Jourdain’s optimism,
And while I know that progress in being made,
day by day,
I know that he is human.
I didn’t leave this truth behind when I drove two days West to this land called “Indian Country,”
the “Land of a Thousand Lakes.”
Here, an Indian is human.
And Jourdain,
- is a politician.
Staying with Susan
The gnarled hands grip the television remote.
The light of the television flickers against the darkness of the downpour outside.
The rain pounds the roof of this small red home,
just as it must have doing for years on this spit of land that reaches out toward the great expanse of Red Lake.
Now I am here to hear the rain as I squirm uncomfortably on the seat cushions of the sagging loveseat.
The silence of the room envelopes me like the musty scent of old cigarettes that lingers in the kitchen.
Two hours in a car,
And I end up here, in a place that seems both a world away and somehow just as familiar as my grandmother’s two story bungalow that sits back from a shaded suburban Newark street.
Here, I clear my throat awkwardly,
Desperately wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.
I don’t.
Instead,
I sit and watch the bands of rain pushing across the weather map,
Again,
and again.
I wait as Susan naps and my stomach rumbles, unused to this new diet of ramen noodles, potato chips, and pop.
“Why am I here?”
Looking back,
I see learning,
And a culture,
In that silence.
These are the people and that was their life -
a small sphere encompassing a daughters’ home three doors down,
a dilapidated gas station convenience store for groceries,
and the small grungy car with a sagging roof that serves to get there.
Life was the stained dentures bobbing in the cup on the counter,
The pictures of grandchildren lining the walls,
And the faded sheet sets covered with fir trees and encasing a sinking foam mattress.
There I wasn’t among the ones who made it.
This family wasn’t quite Anton
– at least on the outside.
Powwows, feasts,
- They don’t happen every day.
Sometimes sons go out on cold and rainy days to fish for walleye on the lake.
Sometimes you eat Chef Boyardee and green beans from a can for dinner.
I saw people.
It’s not about the trash-littered yards lining the narrow street.
It’s not about the dogs running wild, some with porcupine quills poking from a sorry red nose.
There was respect there, respect of a family.
- a culture
And maybe,
By just listening,
I earned my own kind of quiet respect.
Because,
before I left,
I found Susan pressing a shining silver bracelet and a set of turquoise earrings into my tightly clasped palm.
“Don’t refuse,” she said. “It’s my gift to you.”
Gift-Giving
When I asked what kind of gift I should give,
I wanted to know what would be appropriate.
I wanted to know what would be appreciated.
I wanted a simple answer,
- Give a blanket,
- Or give sheets,
- Give a picture frame.
I wanted to know how much money to spend.
I wanted dollars and cents.
I wanted things spelled out in black and white.
There was too much ambiguity for me - the literalist, the perfectionist.
I remember flipping through the towels at J.C. Penney,
Fretting as I tried to decide between the khaki and the sage.
As I stood among the many hues,
I wondered just what would be appreciated.
But when we reached the drum ceremony,
I learned just what Bruce meant.
In the moment,
as the drum beat echoed
and the singers gave their high wailing song,
I learned
- it’s not the gift that counts.
Because I and the round-bellied old man,
recipient of my worn copy of Tuesdays With Morrie,
we both left with renewal, generosity,
in our hearts.
Remembering Indian Time
As I raced to work today,
Running yellow lights and impatiently waiting for slow-moving, trailer-toting truck in front of me with its family of four on vacation,
I suddenly remembered
-Indian Time-.
It felt like walking unexpectedly into a door that you were sure was open.
Could it only have been one week since I watched the medicine men contentedly passing the pipe, smoking away the hours as they sat on the blanket-covered cushions of the drooping sofa as I waited with bated breath for something, anything, to happen?
And so today,
I take a deep breath and remember my place in the universe.
Life happens when it is meant to happen.
Not before.
Fishing
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
The first lay limp on the bare and gritty metal floor of Darwin’s canoe with its silvery scales glinting in the sheen of the rain.
But I saw it first slipping through the lake water as its powerful tail whooshed back and forth, propelling it forward on its journey.
The next time, the fish was still, looking up at me from Nancy’s tinfoil-covered aluminum tray as I salivated in anticipation after a day of fasting.
I saw it again, this time bashing its massive head against the concrete wall of the dam in what seemed to be a desperate frustration at the insurmountable obstacle placed before it.
The other fish, I only held in my hand.
I reached out to grasp the elder’s palm as we sat,
Side-by-side,
In a white tent erected in the park for the Big Drum Ceremony.
“Bozhoo,” I said,
As I extended my firm grasp.
But as our palms slipped into place,
I found,
- a fish.
My hand seemed to swim in a moist void
As I pumped my arm,
Extending the ritual.
Soon, I fled this uncomfortable and limp sensation.
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
One lay cold on dirty boat floor.
One I held in the palm of my hand.
But both fish earned my respect.
One for its taste.
The other,
For its humility.
Preconceptions
I thought that I had written a perfect poem.
The words had come. They had felt inspired.
I saw the imagery. I felt the sensations,
- clearly
in those words.
I described the dichotomy.
I described the two rings of the powwow.
The inner wood stands,
Steeped in tradition.
The outer, Americanized semicircle of merchants, wares, and frybread,
Just like any other fair.
But as I reflected,
Slouching in my computer chair at work,
Absently twirling my newly shorn hair and thinking
(When I should have been working),
It occurred to me that I might be taking creative license as I described the world that I had glimpsed.
And Tony’s words repeated in my mind as that first sunny and chill morning in the American Indian Resource Center seemed to flash behind my tightly shut eyelids.
“Don’t vilify us,”
He said.
“But don’t, don’t, romanticize us either.”
Leaning back,
I sighed.
My poem was to begin again.
The words seemed far less certain,
Far less sure.
I felt as if I had come upon an unexpected fork in the road. I wasn’t quite sure which was the right way to turn.
My pen stumbled over words,
Over labels,
That had seemed clear-cut before.
It occurred to me to wonder,
“Who was I speaking for?”
Were they:
Indians?
Ojibwe?
Aboriginal People?
Native Americans?
American Indians?
Indigenous Peoples?
My dictionary - lost.
What words describe a bridge between two worlds?
Where craftsmen display the turquoise hanging in delicate silver strands as they proudly state, “Yes, I made this myself,”
Where the dancers stomp out rhythms in a competition, dating to an entertainment form,
Where the old men wear both eagle feathers and the American flag plastered t-shirts proclaiming them “Veterans of Foreign Wars,”
Where the woman sells her swamp tea brewed strong.
And so,
As I fumble for the words to take the panorama down,
I wonder at my place to do the job at all.
I’m trying to fill in the bare and outlined boxes.
Are you:
Caucasian?
Hispanic?
American Indian?
Please check the appropriate space.
But here is life, not a college application.
And so who am I to poke, to prod, to judge?
These are a sovereign people,
And their definition is their own.
Culture Shock
A culture.
“In a way,”
Bruce says,
“He’s learning right along with Che.”
And I look at the grown man who stands
Chatting with Toma in a ray of forest sunshine
Several yards away.
“Where has culture gone?”
I wonder.
Where has a culture gone when grown men learn alongside their sons?
A culture.
Sitting down to dinner around table that sat wedged in a corner between a tall chest of drawers and the edge of a faded kitchen counter,
My head jerks up,
Eyes wide,
As Susan speaks.
“Will you say the blessing?”
She turns and asks of me.
“Me?”
I squeak,
I glance around,
As if looking out the window to my right past the rain dripping slowly down will reveal some fresh victim to take my holy place.
Taking a deep breath,
I begin.
The words pour out in a jumble.
“I was raised Catholic,” I say.
She nods.
And I intone
“Bless us O Lord,
And these thy gifts,”
I now remember the small worn Bible that rested in proud prominence on her shelf.
A culture.
“We did a sweat lodge yesterday,”
I state
-foolishly
-naively.
I expect a response like Annie’s
-“It was the worst experience of my life during – the best afterward.”
But in this cramped kitchen,
The woman shrugs with her shoulders and her fingers, covered with a heavy sprinkling of rings, sparkle in the overhead fluorescent light.
“I’ve never been,”
She says.
And though I’m just reading body language
(Which may or may not be true),
It strikes me that this Native woman that I stand before
Was raised in a Christian home and may be looking down on Native History with scorn.
A culture of contradictions.
A culture shock for me.
Surprises,
What else could life be for?
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