Max Early

Passing Through the Heart of Old Laguna


Place your ear to the ground, hear the Merigaanas approaching
—Laguna Pueblo Adage

She transcends our reservation land
with eminent domain.
                                From Chicago, Illinois
                                                                   to Santa Monica, California,
                                her road’s majority rests
                                                                   within Indian Country—

Route 66 Right-of-Way carves through
                                                    heart of Laguna Pueblo,
paved over pottery shards
                                                    and arrowheads concealed.

From Los Lunas she enters
our eastern pueblo border.
                                                                                              
                                       New bridges over Rio Puerco, Rio San Jose,
                                        towards El Rito and Mesita village—Haat-tsaachu.

The Atchison, Topeka
                                         and the Santa Fe
                                                                  bisect our countryside.

Greet dominion with commerce,            
a sovereign nation’s only resort,
new trade goods and trademarks.

                                                       Laguna ladies selling pottery
                                                                 by your roadside.

Twists and turns on age-old native trail,
 a hundred and eighty degree bend
                                                        brought deadly fame
                                                         dubbed Dead Man’s Curve.

She reveals ancient landmarks as sightseers gaze
at massive rock formations west of Mesita, 
                                                        Roadrunner and Owl Rock
                                                        Shaash-ka eh Koo-koop Yonee.

Uphill, Old Laguna village – Kawaika,
         San Jose de Laguna Mission Church,
                     completed in 1699.
Prominent landmark of the first foreign invaders.

Bygone days: New Laguna’s Train Depot,
                                       The red metal flag at Paraje Trading Post
                                                pulls out to signal the Greyhound bus.

Nostalgic Mother Road, thoroughfare,
                 Laguna Pueblo commemorates
          her service by designating our franchise  
                                  Route 66 Casino and Hotel.

Historic highway oasis for exhausted motorists.

Max Early (Laguna Pueblo) is a 2022 inaugural IN-NA-PO fellow and a recent MFA graduate from the Institute of American Indian Arts. His poems are published in Inkwell Journal, Poetry Northwest, Zócalo Public Square, Poetry Magazine, Poets.org’s Poem-a-Day series, and forthcoming in Hayden Ferry Review. His first poetry collection is Ears of Corn: Listen (3: A Taos Press). He has received fellowships from Writing By Writers, Orion in the Wilderness, SAR’s Indigenous Writer, and Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. His clans are Tsina Hanu (Turkey People) and Kwaya Waashch’ee (child of the Bear). Early lives in the village of Paguate, New Mexico.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022