by Ethel Mortenson Davis
She dropped her eyes
when a white woman
said, good morning.
Silence
is all there was.
Perhaps she remembered
the Long Walk
and what the whites did:
How they starved
and killed
the Navajo,
down to five thousand—
how they decimated them
until their chromosomes
layed waste
and disease set in,
diseases where the people
cannot go out in the sun
without dying.
Silence is what she spoke.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
A drawing by Ethel Mortenson Davis for the cover of Thomas Davis’s novel for young adults, Salt Bear, which is published by Four Windows Press at our home in Continental Divide, New Mexico
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Published Books, Thomas Davis
a pastel drawing by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
In my dream
I was in a forest, just born.
(I was given a second chance.)
My old beginning
was an old skin,
discarded and left behind,
one covered with pain
and suffering,
one I had separated from
and left on the forest floor
behind me.
Here, I was born
into a loving family,
one who welcomed me
and esteemed me.
The she-wolf nurtured me
(animals take care of their young)
as I clung tight to her soft hair.
She spoke to me.
Her close-set eyes cautioned me.
“When you feel danger
leave that place.
You will always have danger
and enemies.
“If you are wounded
go back to your beginning.
And there in the quiet
and coolness you will heal.”
She taught me how to live.
“Take care of your reality
at hand. Take care
of your young first.”
She taught me how to die.
“Death is a passage
to another beginning.
Remember, there is always
hope.”
The soft winds of the forest
rocked me to sleep.
The evening primroses
caressed me with their sweet water.
My life was full,
And I was happy.
When I awoke
I knew I had begun again.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
They came
to Our Lady of Conquering Love
to light a candle
for a father,
sick now,
in the humble church
in New Mexico.
Fumbling to produce
the right coin,
the travelers
looked in empty pockets
until a stranger,
a man, came to them
with a small coin.
With a flickering light,
under Our Lady of Conquering Love,
the travelers left
the small, humble church
where the Lady
still lives.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I’ve been looking
for someone
to take our hand,
but no one does.
Louise Erdrich says
that in grief you must
take your own hand.
So we must
take our own
and step between the paleness
that camps all around:
In the trees,
in the sunlight,
and in the house.
We must take
our own.
from White Ermine Across Her Shoulders, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Copyright © 2011, available at bn.com.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a photograph by Sonja Bingen of Ethel’s Logo Design for College of the Menominee Nation taken on the Menominee Nation in Keshena, Wisconsin
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
