And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 17:36:54 -0700
From: James BlueWolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Halito-Ish
just want to tell someone that my first book of poetry,
"Sitting By His Bones", is finally in print. Anyone you know that can
help a starving writer- please tell em. My brother and I have a book
coming out in November, called "Grandpa Says". High hopes for that
one. Anyway hope things are going well with you. I'd post this on the
lists but I don't want to start an avalanche of sales pitches- so it's
gotta be word of mouth.
Chuckma- james
PS anyone who wants to order can send to:
"Sitting By His Bones"
Earthen Vessel Productions
971 Point Lakeview Rd # 3
Kelseyville, CA 95451
$12.95, Cal sales tax $1.00, 1-5 copies $5.00 shipping and handling.
Here are a couple samples from the first book,
"Sitting By His Bones"
Ist printing May 1999
copyright J. BlueWolf
Earthen Vessel Productions
We Don't Say Goodbye
Grandpa went to work the high steel
Told Grandma, "feed him Indin'
Meaning deer and frybread
Which she did for a few days
Until we got hungry for fried chicken
And hamburgers.
She'd bake a whole pie just for me
Watch me eat until I hurt
Then giggle at my moaning
Making piggy sounds.
I caught fireflies
She put 'em in a jar beside my bed
To remind me of the stars.
We walked to ruins
played on broken walls
She brought apples
Showed me how to get the sticky off
rubbing my hands in the red earth.
We watched a neighbor killing starlings
She shook her head and turned away
Later she laughed at the way Tonto spoke
To the Lone Ranger
But admired the horses.
When it was time for me to leave
She walked me to bus
we stopped to skip stones
and sniff honeysuckle.
Her hands were strong
When we hugged -my back cracked.
She crooked a finger to my lips
"We don't say goodbye!"
Forty years ...
I still don't.
And one more...
The Day You Close My Eyes
There is a mountain meadow green
That waits for my return
With pine and sage and crystal streams
Lined with feathery fern.
Thickets where the fat grouse lie
Trails where elk still run
Here is a place to spread my ash
When these tumbleweed days are done.
There is a painted high plateau
That waits for my return
With prickly pear and pinion pine
Fresh cedar boughs to burn.
Arroyo beds with flashflood dreams
Chokecherries ripe and fine
Coyote howls at a million stars
And every one is mine.
There is a cold and rocky shore
That waits for my return
With green kelp whips and white driftwood
New seagull chants to learn.
Spume and froth and shifting sand
Tides mate with a yielding beach
Far horizons melt in fog
But are never out of reach.
There is a hand-drum on the wall
That waits for my return
Children that I love to squeeze
A clay pot yet to turn.
Embers crouch in a pipestone bowl
Where sweet prayers yearn to rise
All this you'll see reflected, dear
On the day you close my eyes.
Here's a preview of the next book-
Haunted Hearts and Indin Parts
due for release in 2000
Island
He covers the lodge,
wondering
where the young men
have gone
today.
Arthritic arms split
pitchy firewood,
build and tend
orange-red piece of sun.
Grandmother
carries in Stones,
closes flap,
returns
to tending grandchildren.
He sings softly,
enjoying familiar dark,
comforting
drip drip
sweat.
Brown wrinkled hands
tenderly
ladel water
on glowing
rocks
spitting and hissing
their thanks.
He breathes deeply
center of the universe
humid, airless
sage and sweetgrass,
copal fragrance
stinging
in his nose.
Emerging,
pinkly newborn,
his body
fogs
the cool air.
Standing,
steaming
beneath rubber hose,
cold water
awakens
each grateful patch of skin,
every energetic molecule.
When young,
Old Man
put heavy burdens
on his shoulders,
became the example,
sacrificed himself,
endured
so his children
might live.
Dreams
come to him still,
but favorite horses
unridden
graze uneasily.
He limps back down
the cabin path
wondering
where the young men
have gone
today.
And another...
The Haunting of Hearts
There's fish in the tules
but the lake has changed.
These fish,
immigrants and expatriots,
are not the sweetmeats
once loved.
Distracted geese visit,
like distant relatives,
honking
while millions
take more eastern routes.
This land has changed.
Clearcut and planted,
oak forests are gone,
their survivors
losing the battle
with moss
and christmas parasite.
Two leggeds,
whose relatives
call this their ancient home,
live in small enclaves,
mired in the sticky mud of poverty.
Brown faces still
look towards the lake,
but desire more
modern lives
and cannot feel
their land.
Earth slips between their
grasping fingers
like forgotten language
sterile,
meaningless.
What do they remember
of past pride?
In a world pretending
culture,
they wish to be different
yet embrace all that is similar.
When they have finished
this pale transformation-
the ghosts
of what they've lost
will haunt their children's hearts
forever.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP
JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
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