When Winter Come
Page 3
Hunters’ Code
Hunters’ Code
Train a sharp eye an ear.
Travel light.
Pray for a worthy adversary.
Always track game downwind.
Don’t waste ball an powder if steel blade will do.
Kill only to eat.
Spare the young an them heavy with calves.
Make the wounds quick an clean.
Don’t let the animal suffer.
Give thanks for the hunt.
Pour some water for the ancestors.
Apologize for bringing death to the living.
Leave some behind for the forest.
Taste the tender liver, but always eat the heart first.
Signifying
Signifying
York’s hatchet
When my onyx captain mean biz-ness,
when he feel threatened
he don’t reach for nothin’ small ’n pretty
he don’t bother fumblin’
with no powderhorn ’n ball neither.
When the choices be life o’ death
he know he need a steel tooth killer like me
that know nothin’ ’bout no ticklin’
or caressin’. Gentle ain’t never been my song.
When a grizzly need to be stopped
dead in his tracks, already fulla hot lead
an madder for it, he gone reach fo’ me
t’ silence his gapin’ mouth ’n angry tone.
He gone ask my steel kiss t’ cleave an gash
t’ hew ’n chop like lightnin’ strikes.
He gone want me t’ get loud ’n mean
to unlock that monster’s skull
t’ run my tongue ’cross his brain, t’ burrow
through his ribcage ’til I can taste his heart
t’ fill the air with blood ’n guts
’til dere ain’t nothin’ left
but a bear skin ’n a pile a steaks.
Ya see, killas only respect killas
neva nothin’ weak ’n shiny
neva nothin’ that hide ’n spit atcha
from behind trees
from fifty paces ’n maybe tear
a lil’ hole in ya flesh.
Nah, killin’ is what we do
’n the reason he sleep with his fingers
’round my throat.
Settling Debts
Settling Debts
The captains would say Sacagawea’s gift
was being sister to the Shoshone chief
who give us horses to cross the all-winter
mountains. They write ’bout her rescuing supplies
out the river an trading her own belt for food.
I will always remember her quiet
an how she kept her boy cub alive
with rattlers an grizzlies an hunger ’bout.
She strong as a rock an never complain
’bout the unkind storms or snow or words.
When Capt. Clark offer to take her boy to raise
I catch myself hoping one a the captains write down
my face, scratch out a small York on paper
after a hunt, wild game strung over my shoulders
so somebody knows I earned some rewards too.
Learning Curve
Learning Curve
Sacagawea
When I was stolen as a child
and taken far from home and girlhood
I learn to hate
and I cried all the tears I had.
When I become second wife to Charbonneau
I learn to serve.
He older than my own father
and not ride me hard or long
if I lie still and quiet and swallow all my tears.
When I become a mother to my little hunter
his eyes meet mine and melt my stone heart.
This teaches me to love again but my work doubles itself
and soon I have two men to serve.
Concentric
Concentric
Sacagawea
The white man seem to always move and think
in straight lines, while my people put everything
in a circle, including York.
I laugh quietly when I hear the party complain
that when the “savages” circle up it’s hard to know
who is in charge. As if even a circle need a captain.
Then I reflect on how a full moon, the bright sun
ball, and even my son’s hungry mouth all seem
round and perfect as the way my people see things.
Common Ground
Common Ground
Sacagawea
As the ocimbamba seeks the low lying tree so friends
gather to the friendly person.
—African Proverb
When I follow my husband
who agree to be tongue
for the white man
I meet another who serve like a wife
but he is black as an eagle’s claw
big as a tree and a man.
Others call him Big Medicine
and the children run and hide in fear
when he round his eyes and show his teeth
but when he look and smile at me
then hold out a night sky for hands
he make me feel safe and warm.
Goodbye to the Ocean
How to Say Goodbye to the Ocean
Sacagawea
When I meet the Great Water
she who the Raven call Yemaya
I close my eyes and feel her fingers
pull me out toward her circle
away from men, birthing a joy
warmer than any I’ve ever known.
But when I can no longer smell her salt
in the air and her song gets too soft to hear
my own water breaks again, but this time
instead of a brave little hunter or dancer
I give birth to a great emptiness
I know I’ll carry on my back forever.
Cutting Back
Cutting Back
York’s knife
Thunder might spook a horse,
but lightning is the knife that strikes.
Death is never as simple
as that loud-mouthed hatchet makes it out to be.
He’s just extra weight
when there’s no killing to be done.
Big dumb clumsy chopping
doesn’t require thought or skill.
A blade can cut down a tree or a bear or a man,
but what else can it do?
It can’t skin a buffalo
or change its wooly back into rawhide.
It’s useless when York needs to scale and clean a fish
or lance a wound.
It might hack off a piece of meat
but can it peel the skin off a piece of fruit?
Size means nothing when the right vein
and the blood that courses through it need separating.
I can take the hair off a man’s throat or slice it open
without raising my voice.
These fools sit around the fires all night
pining for the love of a good woman.
And they believe a good woman
is always quiet and small and pretty.
But they aren’t ready for a real one like me,
who is as dangerous and useful in the wild
as fire is in the kitchen.
To Honor and Obey
To Honor and Obey
Agreeing to be Capt. Clark’s man servant
be something like being married
only in joining with a wife I have some power
an with the captain I have none.
I say agreeing ’cause I had many a opportunity
to escape an run away, but I choose to stay
an to keep our agreement of sorts
though many could never make good sense a that.
Some
think I stayed ’cause a fear a being punished
fear a losing my privileges like hunting with a gun
or fear a being treated like a regular field hand
an I reckon there be some truth in alla that.
But fear ain’t the only thing keep people wedded.
Once them gets past the wedding night
they figures out who gets to say
an who gets to do.
An that be a easy thing if you believe one born
to rule over the other, but if you starts out in the world
believing it’s so, an then come to know later
that it wrong like I did, it can be a bitter root.
I was so angry for mistaking blindness an foolishness
for what I thought was loyalty
I tried to drown myself in whiskey.
I’m shamed that I called myself a man
but was never man enough to question if it be right
to keep a boot on somebody’s neck
just ’cause they be black
or just ’cause they be woman.
I be even more shamed for not seeing
the double booting a them that was both.
Primer II
Primer II
I can read the heart ova woman in her eyes
as easy as a lie in a man’s face.
The direction an power ova storm speaks
clearly to me from low-flying bird wings.
I can dip my fingers into muddy hoof or toe print
an tell how many a what I’m gone have for dinner.
The thickness a tree bark, walnut hulls, an tobacco worms
tell me how ugly winter gone be.
I knows the seasons like a book. I can read moss, sunsets,
the moon, an a mare’s foaling time with a touch.
I would trade all this to know how to scratch out
my name as more than a X,
to have my stories leap off paper as easy as they roll
off my tongue,
to listen to my own eyes,
make the words on parchment say
This man here be York.
He can come an go as he please,
work for hisself, own land, learn his books,
live, an die free
Part II
Ananse Returns
Ananse Returns
I introduces Ol’ York to coyote
an the best Indian tales I can call back up
from the trip out west
His Rose push him to share one
a her favorites ’bout the keys
an how God give the woman power
over the generations an the kitchen
to even out giving man alla strength
he use to knock her ’round.
I smile knowin’ how all these stories
almost makes up for the wisdom
folks who can must gets from books
Later, I thinks back on the look
in Rose’s eye an how she stare at me
when the lesson in the story unfold.
On the way over to see my wife
I trys to figure out what she really think
I needs to learn.
Merits of Love
Rose and York’s Wife Debate the Merits of Love
Without love . . . little by little we destroy ourselves.
—Chief Dan George, Coast Salish
What I learnt from being married t’ Ol’ York is dat
love be like a good story dat you can’t neva get tired a.
What I learnt from his son is dat love is quiet
an dat it don’t talk back.
He didn’t learn dat foolishness from us. He learnt dat mess
from his white daddy. York want to be like Massa Clark so
bad he need his own slave t’ order an’ knock around too.
A man like my York gets knocked ’round out dere
all day. If he need t’ do a little knockin’ when he
come home, so dat he feel like a man, dat’s his right.
Chile it’s a heap a difference ’tween serving a man ’cause
he own you an serving one ’cause you want him on you.
Ain’t no diff’rence t’ me. Dey both can have us
anytime dey wants. Ain’t no law stoppin’ ’em
from killin’ us if dey wants neither. We just
here t’ mind dey kids, spin wool, boil dey clothes
clean, keeps the root cellar an springhouse full,
an spread our legs. What use we got wit love?
Chile, you make me wanna cry. You so busy waiting on
some joy in the next life,
you done let dese so-called men kill the only thing
dey couldn’t take from you.
Whiskey Talks
Whiskey Talks
. . . the tales that black York told, when he was
liquored up, were as long as Missouri and tall as the
Rockies.
—Donald Culross Peattie, Forward the Nation
I killed hundreds a grizzlies
with my bare hands
though I owns my own gun.
made myself invisible
an walked in the forest
unseen.
danced with buffalo
climbed mountains topped
with snow in the summer
seen dogs that live in holes
in the ground and deer with heads
bigger than horses
chiefs gave me they daughters an wives
an stood guard outside
while I done my business.
Me an Capt. Clark sired sons
with Indian gals. Many tribes
traded for my seed.
My captain gone set me free
an give me a piece a land
for all I done on the expedition.
I’m gone buy my family
go back out west
an live like a king.
We not on this earth
to be slaves.
Real Medicine
Real Medicine
He who does not know a medicine defecates on it.
—African Proverb
I saw a medicine woman surrounded in smoke
turn a buffalo horn ’round
an use it to suck the illness an blood out
a sick body without so much as making a cut.
I watched a medicine man shake his bear claw
sing a healing song an cry for the evil spirit
that lived in a crippled man to leave him in peace.
In the middle a the night there come a great wind
an thundering hoofs that put our fire to sleep.
When the sun returned the man stood up an walked.
Praying Feets
Praying Feets
I ordered my boy York to dance. The Indians seem
amazed that a man so large is so light on his feet.
—William Clark
Something like leaving happens
when I be ordered to dance.
Not the pack up camp an go kinda leave
but how things might be if my mind
weren’t shackled inside my head
like dreaming but not being asleep.
I might take a puff a tobacco, tie on
a piece a red cloth an wave my hatchet
’round my head to get my mind right.
An once I gets good an loose, I starts
to feel lighter an lighter ’til soon
I hardly weighs nothing at all.
I spends as much time in the air
as on my feet an after a while it’s like
my soul be dancing to drums that thunder
an I be a small child on the ground watching
my body follow the music, catch it
then leave it to make its own.
My captain think it make him look more powerful
to order a man such as me to dance
but the
Indians see my body move by its own spirit
an not by a white man’s hand
raise they voices, sing nothing but praises
an join me in the air.
Murmuration
Murmuration
I seen a flock a large birds
change direction at the same time
as if they be a the same mind
or listen to the same drum
like whirling dancers waiting for the break.
I seen more buffalo than trees
run full out ’cross a valley
shoulder to shoulder hoof to hoof
trample everything under foot
somehow spare a newborn deer
frozen in a wet ball alone
an hidden
among the high weeds.
Like our people, Indians believe
even the animals share a master drummer
but the captains think we the only ones
that know how to dance.
Out There Watching
How I Know Mamma Out There Watching
. . . the succession of curious adventures wore the
impression on my mind of enchantment.
—Meriwether Lewis, June 14th, 1805
One day I separated from the rest a the party to follow
a group a buffalo that seem to call my name
an this angry low cloud swoop down over the river the way
that lion swoop down on the monkey’s back in that story
a Ol’ York’s, only this lion is big an black like me
full a thunder an lightning, an throwing down iceballs
as big as my fist, so I whistles sharp an loud, gets low an
strokes the shells on the hunting shirt she gimme,
an it fly right over.
Before I can reflect on how lucky I be, it come to me that
Charbono’s squaw an her lil’ warrior, Jean Baptiste
is now right b’neath that lion’s claws, so I stampedes back
for the rescue an finds they barely escapes a surprise flood
that washed away Capt. Clark’s compass an Charbono’s gun.
I think no more about it ’til I hear that before the cloud