I wonder what our families
would have been
had the older brother
taken the younger
into his heart,
protecting him,
helping him?
Had the older sister
loved the younger.
taking the difficult choices
with her?
What would the products
of these families,
the children—us—
have been to each other?
Would we have wanted
To destroy each other?
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
As cold as fish, as gray as slate, a bear
Rose from a foaming wave and walked to shore.
Above gray limestone cliffs a fiery glare
Of maples bent into the tempest’s roar.
Out in the lake clouds churned a waterspout
Into a weave of water, waves, and sky
As frenzied schools of salmon, whitefish, trout
Leapt from the wind-whipped waves and tried to fly.
The bear, eyes black as lodestone stone, stood, roared
Into the roar of waves and shrieking wind
And tipped its massive head, its voice a chord
That stilled the storm and brought it to an end.
As winter gnarled inside the bear’s black eyes,
Its breath spilled geese into the lake and skies.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Canadian geese,
gleaning after
the harvesting tractor,
is like
the soul searching
for a place
to enter,
or escape,
into the shafts of light—
like the light
outside the basement door
this morning…
Or was it two maples
that propelled me
across the bay?
Or
the wing
of the Monarch
in the afternoon’s late light?
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
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
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