Four Poems for Azalea and Aluminum Prairies —Ray Young Bear
"...and when I found out
what she was heading for,
it was too late."
—The Guess Who
1.
It's Monday, the third week in July 2015.
At 10 AM, as it's done for thirteen years,
the tribe's garbage truck, now mud-
covered and moaning insidiously,
slides
its way down the long gravel driveway.
Imprinted on its doors are two spotted
wings, framing our Black Eagle Child
name. In the truck's cab are Ducks
Down
and Star Calf. Soon, from high above
the cat-tail marsh, small, fierce birds
take turns bull-riding a red tail hawk.
In sharp, audible protests, the raptor
surrenders
to the cottonwood shade to gaze
and marvel at the fat, writhing snake
impaled in its talons.
2.
Here, behind the picture window—
and like that prey, on a cottonwood
branch, who's about to be quartered
and splayed, I'm on the Lazy-Boy,
watching
in near-paralysis. Laconically,
the TV announces threat of afternoon
funnel clouds preceded by dangerous
heat. By sundown, as dark gray clouds
with
orange tips roll in from Jean Seberg
County, lightning sears the landscape.
After weeks of proofreading Aluminum
Prairies & Other Misnomers,
an
ice pack melts quickly over a surgery-
weakened belly. And Atom, once
a source of creativity, succumbs
to arthritis compounded
with
fatigue. At a point where I've
convinced myself elderly pain
is manageable, I tremble-point
to the cardinal points, hoping
to
re-enter hinterland normalcy.
3.
On the night Azalea vanished,
she wrote, "Long before sunset,
the shadows of Florentine streets
resonate. That's when Hombre,
the
beagle, lounges with Alchemists
and Master Blasters at the Piazza
Santo Spirito." But please be careful,
I replied, not to mix R-Cs with garrulous
company.
Its revelry might trigger galley oars
to nudge the Mediterranean awake.
Then, like pumpkins in an unkept garden,
some antiquities might cry from neglect.
Three
years ago, in hefty trunks stenciled
On the Premise of Change, she shipped
herself overseas to promote her Lake
Agassiz line of hats, scarves,
and
sunglasses. Thus, on that pivotal
night, a dream propelled me akameeki,
overseas to Florence, where a faceless
person and I were walking on dei
Serraghli,
a narrow street, looking for Hombre.
When we peered into a dimly-lit
butcher shop, I woke up. A week later,
news came that the polizia had filed
charges
on the last person the "American
fashionista was with." At some point,
it was also reported, the beagle
would fly back to South Carolina
alone
and under sedation.
4.
Not far from the hazy driveway,
while shadows of birds locked
in aerial combat flicker across
an un-mowed lawn, a crawdad
emerges
cautiously to peep from its dewy
hillside den. Laced with the scent
of dandelions and wild onions,
it scurries across the road,
reminding
me of a rebel who wears bandoliers
of Dragunov snayperskaya rounds.
Then, before the garbage truck
maneuvers past pools of rainwater,
the
crawdad backs up robotically into
the cover of cool grass, lifting
its lone claw high, like a rifle,
and mocking in defiance
the
madnesse.
David Axelrod
Devon Balwit
Amber Cecile Brodie
Erika Brumett
Trent Busch
Greg Casale
Hayan Charara
Todd Davis
James Dott
Julie Hanson
Michael Hardin
Jeffrey Herrick
Michael Hettich
Ginger Ko
Katie Kurtz
Kathleen A. Lawrence
Bruce McRae
Willy Palomo
Matthew Rotando
Myrna Stone
Carolyn Williams-Noren
Topaz Winters
Ray Young Bear
Photo: Stella Young Bear