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FOLLOW THE BLACKBIRDS
By GWEN NELL WESTERMAN Michigan State University Press
Copyright © 2013 Gwen Nell Westerman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61186-092-4
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Follow the Blackbirds
The last time I saw her,
confined to hospital bed
in compact tribal housing,
my mother's mother
lay evaporating before
my eyes.
I don't even feel alive,
she said.
She asked for water,
and between small sips
from a straw,
slowly smiled.
Grandma told us
to look for
blackbirds,
she said,
that they always
go to water.
You won't ever
be lost
or thirsty
if
you follow
the blackbirds.
Eyes closed,
I drink in her fluttering voice
trying to quench
the imminent drought,
as flashes of red and yellow
burn across a darkened view.
Don't forget me,
she said,
and don't forget
when you're thirsty,
follow the blackbirds.
A Trade
Following work,
I went west
from the Oklahoma hills.
Leftmy girl behind
with my mother,
and my two baby boys
in the ground.
It was 1939.
Being hungry was hard.
Being lonely was worse.
In Gallup,
a sign said
Waitress
Wanted.
The owner gave me
a crisp white uniform
with pearl buttons,
and new shoes.
Said pretty girls
bring in the customers.
I poured coffee.
Served pie.
Took short orders
and sidelong glances.
After closing,
I drank beer with the locals
until their suspicious
wives
dragged them home.
Married Mr. Wright
but found out soon
that he wasn't.
Moved on.
Flagstaff.
Barstow.
My girl went
to Marietta.
Chilocco.
I kept going.
The shipyards
in San Francisco
by 1943.
Welding on the
second shift.
Hard work,
long hours.
Good money.
At least the war
had some benefits.
Married Mr. Right.
A good-looking sailor
ten years my junior.
After the war,
he took work
with the railroad
and took me home.
Wichita.
Bought everything new
for our new life
together.
Furniture, dishes,
a house.
Work made it
home
but it didn't
seem like
work
at all.
School Days
A small cracked black and white picture.
School name and year
printed across the bottom.
Marietta 1940
She is barely six.
Mouth pressed in a line,
no trace of a smile
anywhere on her face,
her eyes black and full
of sadness.
Head tilted slightly,
straight black hair
cut chin length and held
away from her face
by a ribbon tied in a bow.
Does it match her dress?
No color in that world.
No one left to ask.
The photographer tells her to smile, again.
Does she already see
the disappointments
that lay before her?
The shutter clicks. Flash. Next.
A screen door slams. Mama? Daddy?
The matron tells her to stop crying, again.
Creaky hinges on a front gate draw her
to a window where she waits.
Mouth pressed in a line,
her eyes black and full
of sadness.
Innocent Captives
Captured blackbirds call their unsuspecting relatives
to a feast placed away from fields of ripening sunflowers.
On top of cages, brown rice glitters in toxic trays,
a tempting easy meal.
Poisoned.
Ancient memory guides them each spring and fall
along river valleys and wetlands where rich
cattail marshes were drained and fertilized for increased yield
and prized cash crops and condos grew.
In August, heavy black heads of sunflowers give up
their oil-laden seeds.
Beaks, sharp and black, split shells, black hulls fall
to the black ground.
Pale kernels swallowed in faith to nourish the migration
not all will survive to make the journey.
Husks drop and rice scatters, as darkness falls
blackbirds roost
in a flash of black and red
and they fall
silent
among the blooms.
Mourning Song
for Bud
Marked by a dotted green line on a tired map,
the scenic byway shimmers through the glimmering
heart of gold soybeans and cottonwoods in September.
Driving becomes mindless.
Friend, pause and look this way.
Pushing up against guard rails and old cedar fence rows,
sunflowers stand in tribute along the blacktop,
inconsolable mourners along an endless memorial route.
Tires hum in harmony.
Friend, pause and look this way.
A coyote slips up onto the crest of the road
and stops time on the center line when he looks over,
knowingly, then passes safely to the other side.
Our destination is the same.
Friend, pause and look this way.
The one for whom coyote sings is coming.
Dying of Thirst
leaves lose their weakened grip
and slip
yellow to the ground.
Linear Process
Our elders say
the universe is a
circle.
Everything
returns to its
beginnings.
But where do we go
from here?
Where are
our beginnings?
Our parents were stripped
of their parents
names tongues prayers,
lined up for their meals
clothes classes tests.
When it was our turn
to come into this world,
they did not know
what family meant
anymore.
They did not
know.
Yet even
from here,
we can
see that the
straightest line
on a map
is a
circle.
Saving Scraps
I.
Side by side on a nubby brown couch,
they sat,
blue flickering light of a television
reflecting on their faces,
their eyes focused on their laps.
The old woman pulled a long scrap
of red cloth from a multi-colored
pile on the coffee table
and held it to the lamp.
Content with her choice,
she skillfully pinned
a brown paper pattern onto
the flowery red fabric.
She flexed her right hand.
It took only a few seconds to cut the piece.
The girl fumbled with a small
cardboard square, shifting and moving
and placing it just so
on the blue and white gingham
then poked her finger on the pin.
Without even looking at her,
the woman said,
Your mother couldn't ever
do nothin' right
either.
II.
This time of evening
was our favorite.
All day on my feet
and finally I can sit
for awhile.
Ten years now
that TV keeps me company.
I been saving scraps
and have enough now
to piece another quilt.
Flower garden this time.
These little colored pieces
fill my evenings.
Ten years ago
I made a quilt.
Khaki and denim and wool.
His work pants.
I held each pair
a long time
before I could rip the seams.
Cut big pieces
like his hands.
Smoothed each block
carefully
remembering his warmth,
his strong legs.
Stitched the pieces together
that winter
then tied that quilt with
red embroidery thread.
Each knot tied twice
to hold tight
what was left
behind.
Ten years now
since he held his only
grandchild on this couch.
His smile so wide
I laughed out loud.
Recovered
the chair and the couch.
But here she is,
a constant reminder
that he
is gone.
I sit here alone,
with bits of material and thread,
making something
out of nothing.
III.
The first letter I ever wrote:
Dear grandma,
I want to come live at your house.
They treat me like
I don't belong here.
I put my clothes in my
orange suitcase. Please
come soon.
I was in first grade.
She came all right. She waved that letter
in my mother's face. I don't remember
what she said, just her figure framed
by the front door and sunlight.
Now I spend most weekends at her house.
She picks me up on Fridays after work
and we go to the grocery store
for potatoes, beans, and apple pie.
Mostly it's the same every time.
We watch TV and eat a slice of bread
dipped in milk before we go to bed.
On Sundays we go to church.
At night, when she thinks I'm asleep,
I watch the red ember of her cigarette
glow and dim in the dark.
She never smokes in daylight.
This time, she tried, again, to show me
how to cut quilt blocks, but the scratchy
brown couch makes me itch.
I poke my finger and it bleeds.
So many little pieces.
So many mistakes.
Dead End
Alone at the end of a dusty road,
withered cornstalks linger
like uninvited mourners
shrouded in gray and blue,
voyeurs now, abandoned
for more fertile pursuits,
weakened roots exposed,
they whisper of mistakes
and lack of rain and know
I can go no farther.
Early Freeze
I watch the moon creep
up beyond the trees.
Th rough the yellow glitter
of cottonwood leaves,
it slips into the darkened
palm of the sky.
As the horizon bleeds into dusk,
I run my hand
across the nap of the land
and feel frozen cornstalks
bristle across my palm.
Trying to piece together
what is left,
fingers numbed by a bitter cold
and unprepared for the sting,
I let the wind take my breath.
Henana Epe Kte
Look here, he said,
pointing to the ground,
a buck's toes
are farther apart
than a doe's,
that's how you know
the difference.
Remember that.
I remember.
Listen here, he said,
the easiest way through
the woods is on a path
that has already been
traveled by those who
went there before.
Remember that.
I remember.
Quantum Theory
Cut by a paper razor, I watch blood fill
a perfectly straight wound on my finger,
Denying the swirl of generations before me and
the possibility of those held in my dreams.
Illusory, the narrow and unyielding course fills
in red, then overflows into a galaxy where
Blood carries stories of our origins from
beyond the stars.
Genetic Code
On the edge of a dream,
the songs came.
Condensed from the fog,
like dewdrops on cattails,
they formed perfectly clear.
Whispering through leaves,
heavy voices rise up,
driftbeyond night
toward the silent dawn,
and sing.
Hekta ehanna ded untipi.
Heun he ohinni unkiksuyapi kte.
Anpetu dena ded untipi.
Heca ohinni undowanpi kte.
Always on still morning air,
they come,
connected by
memories and
song.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from FOLLOW THE BLACKBIRDS by GWEN NELL WESTERMAN. Copyright © 2013 by Gwen Nell Westerman. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
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