by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I will give you
a cup to drink
the night sky
and watch you
as you savor
each constellation.
I’ll watch your spirit
soar as the earth
swells up
and carries you along
to the top of the mountain.
And I’ll watch your face
as you see
the perfect gem,
a coral blossom
growing within
the kneeling turquoise juniper.
I will watch you sigh—
for my opiate too
is the earth and the sky.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
She was different suddenly.
Not in the way she looked:
Young woman, small, black eyes intense,
Her mouth used to smiling
Even when she did not feel like smiling–
But the tone of her voice had changed.
Always, before, she’d had a touch of whining
In the way she used words,
The way she thought about herself.
You could always tell she had an inner fire.
She was going to make something of herself
In spite of all the burdens she’d faced:
She had a child when she was too young,
And an uncle who liked to cut her down
When she was most vulnerable,
The reservation woes that went on and on
With family and addictions and anger
So deep it seared the spirit
With a flame too intense to be seen.
You could tell that she’d end up with a degree
In spite of the whine in her voice,
And in spite of the edges of not-good-enough
In the way she approached everybody at school,
The problems that beat her down
And held her back from who she was.
“I’ve found out something,” she said.
She waited, looking at me.
“I’m glad you came to see me,” I answered.
“It’s always good to see you.”
“I found out that I internalize oppression,”
She continued. “I gather up wrong
Everywhere I find it, and then I use it
To beat up on myself and everyone around me.
It’s made me needy in a way
That demands everyone help me all the time,
Even when I should help myself.”
I leaned back in the big black chair
That I’ll only occupy for a short while
As a new president for the college
Is being sought.
I felt stunned, as if suddenly blackbirds
Were surrounding me and singing in
A spring rainstorm and a field of wildflowers.
I had always liked her,
Watching her grow toward maturity
While she fought ferociously for a place in life
She could feel comfortable with.
But this new insight into herself seemed unlikely,
A step too far away for her to reach.
“That’s pretty insightful,” I said.
“You’ve started to grow.”
“I feel awkward seeing that,” she said.
“I keep listening to myself,
And I see what happens when I start telling myself
That I’m not good enough
Or somebody tells me that I shouldn’t be having
The problems I’m having,
And then I don’t know how to act or even think.
I want to blame somebody, anybody.
But I don’t want to blame myself
While I’m really blaming myself,
And even though I see the oppression
Building and building inside me,
I still can’t stop it from making me do things
Or say things
Or even be things that I know aren’t good for me.”
“Wisdom begins in the discovery of self,” I said.
“You’ve made a huge breakthrough.
I’m proud of you.”
“I’ve had so many people close to me die,”
She said. “Classes have been too hard
This semester, and all I’ve done is cry.
I’ve wanted to drop out of school
So many times I don’t understand why I’m here.”
I smile.
“You’re here because here you can make discoveries
About yourself, your life, and everything you need to learn,”
I said. “I don’t even want to hear
About you thinking about dropping out.
I have faith in you and who you are.”
“My uncle yelled at me the other day
And told me that my problems were my fault,”
She said. “I believed him
Until I told him that it didn’t matter what he thought.
What mattered was that I am going
To keep on going on until I’m the first one
In my family or his family going back forever
Who walks across the stage at graduation
And gets a college diploma in her hot little hand.”
Getting up and going out the door,
Looking over her shoulder, grinning.
“I guess I’m learning something here after all,”
She said, then quickly walked away.
Note: Originally published in the Tribal College Journal.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
It is a country of stones—
Stoneland.
All you have to do,
when you walk,
is look down,
and there are
the most interesting stones.
All kinds, colors
and strenghs.
Looking down today
I saw petrified wood.
It is a land
more about itself
and less about humans,
it’s vastness
overwhelming.
The animals,
with adept feet,
steal away
where people never see,
a private land,
so much undiscovered.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis from World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium Poems, Navajo Technical University Press
Two long days of writing a constitution
And making the structure of an accreditation authority,
Then the long drive from Porirua to Hamilton
Through the Ruahine range of mountains
And mountains and hills of the Wanganui River.
All day we passed from sunshine to storm,
Rain and even hail blowing out of clouds
That crept white and shifting down green mountains
Where rows of pines waited for cover
Before they marched in maneuvers
Designed to confuse eyes of hawks and human beings.
We traveled so long we forgot about white manes of seahorses
That galloped in heavy winds beneath ocean
Into unmoving rocks of shore.
For hours rainbows walked ahead of us,
Sometimes one, bright in its arching,
And at other times two, dark one larger than the bright one
And always trailing behind,
A mother watching out for her adventuresome child
That once darted so close to us it made the wet branches of a pine tree shine.
We did not stop at the proceedings at Moutoa Gardens
Where Maori camped in bright colored tents,
Occupying ground in order to assert sovereignty
As old as the naming of the shaky isles by Aborigine,
But passed gorges plunging to river waters
Before greenness that covered hills and mountains
And fell into valleys blessed by singing birds
That kept trying to tell of the rainbow’s walking glory.
At the Lady of the Waterfall, in rain,
Mana Forbes blessed stones we had taken to ourselves
After we had climbed down steps to the waterfall
In the country of kings.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
In my two weeks of absence
I deeply missed
Shiva, my dog.
When I arrived home
she danced in circles;
then approached me slowly,
smelling my head—
smelling bone, flesh and brain fluid
slipped into my breath.
At night she lay
her head across
my chest,
like the old nurse
from the night shift,
an angel of mercy,
who came to my rescue.
The old dog who knew
about healing;
she showed me
how to be human.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
We stood beneath graves of kings,
And Mana, silver haired, large in life, words, and laughter,
Stood with a staff made in Sante Fe, New Mexico
And spoke as a New Zealand bird sang,
Voice liquid as wind.
Later we stood above Huka Falls and the Waikato River
And saw colors of flowing water change
From a blue dark, with movement toward stones,
To white and turquoise as water tumbled and raged
To escape closing-in stone,
And then into turquoise blending toward green
As white, with turquoise flecks,
Thundered/rushed/calmed into river again.
Then, later still, we passed Pihanga Mountain
As she quietly made trouble in morning air
Near to where she had caused a larger mountain to move,
Leaving a great gash in the earth.
Until, at last, around a bend,
Below mountains covered with green grass,
Breathing with ribs
Made by sheep grazing over time,
We came to the sea where waves sprayed
Over dark shore rocks,
Ending our journey,
Which began in Minnesota winter
And ended here, in the land of Maori,
Where music is breathing
And woodcarvings scrawl a people’s story
From a time of canoes and great forests
Into a time borning
A storm of pride and promise.
Note: Mana in the poem is Mana Forbes, a man who talks to the ancestors and was our guide when we went to New Zealand in order to help establish WINHEC. WINHEC just held their annual meeting at Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, NM where the World Indigenous University (WINU) was formed. The story of an organization that was just a vision thrown around in Hawaii when the first poems of this series were written continues to grow.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I will make a sacred space around you—
like the dome of heaven over the earth.
There the arrows will not penetrate,
and the bow will not exist.
Inside the air will be
the icy breath of January.
It will awaken you from your sleep,
but warmth will be all around you
like the arms of a great bear.
There will also be faces of wolves
whose muzzles poke you under your arm
to get you up on your feet
to see if your wobbly legs can stand.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
I sing the song of Mana Forbes,
His laughter deep with sun-drenched days;
Inside his spirit swirling orbs
Of rainbows dance in bright display.
He drives through fields of endless green
And tries to mock his mocking songs,
But eagles swoop into his dreams
And metamorphose right and wrong
Into a joyous paen to the earth
From where he rises every morn
And feels the cycling birth/rebirth
Of time forever being found, reborn.
So, here’s to Mana voyager!
Canoeing over rivers, hills, and shores,
The clown whose prophecy can stir
Heart prayer, joy, and hawk-winged lore.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
All night
I heard the dog
barking for someone
to help him.
Over the week
his barks became weaker,
until they ceased.
Today the rains
came gently, slowly.
I had to adjust
the rain gutter outside
and got my hair wet.
Rain in the desert
is a cleansing,
renewing
experience,
cleaning what man
leaves in all the earth.
Passing the hall mirror,
I noticed my hair
shiny, soft and curly.
I remember when you
ran outside to catch
the rainwater.
You said it made your hair
so beautiful and shiny,
cleaning it
like nothing else.
Today, in the field,
the vultures are circling.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
Carty Monette, silver hair fine below his shoulder blades,
Eyes shining black, a handsome Indian man,
Told the story at a big Kellogg Foundation meeting
In Green Bay, Wisconsin.
He said he got the story from Wayne Stein,
A professor at a Montana College,
Author of a book on the tribal colleges.
There’s this river, Carty said,
That you see from the distance,
And it looks like it’s shining and beautiful,
A good place to visit,
But when you walk up to its banks
You see that it’s a river of people,
And all of those people are in pain,
And they’re crying for themselves,
Or crying out for help,
Or they’re sinking, or almost sinking,
Below terrible currents that flow downward
Toward a sea over hills,
Past mountains, around the bend.
Some struggle for shore,
Arms flailing and bodies twisting,
And a few make it,
But even though a few make it to the riverbanks,
It’s still a river so big
It sometimes seems to be the world.
Some of those who find the river
Take one look and go back to their valley
Or mountain or city or cabin by a more peaceful river
In woods where water’s sound
Helps them sleep at night.
Others come to the river’s bank,
And they reach out hands
And start trying to save those closest to shore.
Others see the river,
And it confuses them so much they get too close,
And they fall into the flow
And join in the wail of suffering
That makes earth tremble,
Mind recoil with anguish and fear.
Those who grasp a hand and are saved from the river
Usually get away from it as fast as they can
And find their way into the world
Where the sun rises every morning
And on a clear night moonlight shines
On dark waters of a still lake.
But some join others on the river’s bank,
And they start in with the work
Of saving those few they can reach
In the mass of people always flowing past,
And some of those who have found the river
And get out of the river
Keep reaching out for hands and minds
While working upstream,
Trying to find the river’s source,
And in these people lies part of the world’s hope.
I once told Jack Briggs, before he died,
That he was one of those people who were in the river
And then turned around once he was on the bank
And started reaching out to those he had left behind.
I also told him he was one of those
Trying to find the river’s source
So that pain and trouble could be taken from waters,
And the river could flow free of people to a shining sea.
His smile was as bright as Carty’s smile
When the audience clapped after he told Wayne Stein’s story.
But sometimes I stand on the banks of that river,
And I see faces of people I know,
And I hear cries of those whom I love,
And I feel myself slipping into the river’s flow,
And I have to turn around and reach out for other hands
In an effort to save myself.
And in those times, when I am in the grasp of other hands,
I know the glory of humankind
Even though cries of misery and pain fill my ears—
And in those times I lift my eyes to the hills
And see a shining horizon
And the wheeling flight of a wing-spread golden eagle
Making alive cloudless blue skies—
In those times I search for hope
And listen to songs of healing my wife has sung,
And I know the river of people
Is in the world, but is not the world.
There are valleys where yellow meadows shine
Amidst the gentle darkness of great forests,
And there are villages and towns
Where people talk and sing and make love
And walk the good path, the spiritual path, the real path
Of human beings.
* Carty Monette was the President of Turtle Mountain Community College in North Dakota as the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) became a reality. He has been involved in the tribal college movement since its beginning.
* Wayne Stein, when this poem was written a professor at Montana State University, was frequently involved in both WINHEC and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).
* Jack Briggs was the visionary founding President of Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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