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Prayer
Frontiers, 2002 by Gould, Janice
Some days I notice sudden shadows, witness quick
flashes of light, and catch a wavering current of sound
with my one tuned ear. If my mother had known these things
when I was young-seen hard rain as the result of fervent wishes
or understood as prayer the trembling concentration of heat
in the palms of her children's hands-would she have counseled me
to pay attention? Then we might have perceived the presence
of our relative, Doctor Charlie, come back after all these years
to remind his offspring of the good ways of living.
Charlie, who could kill a man by dangerous thinking,
or sicken him by shooting into that person's heart
the redhot ember from a manzanita fire.
Grandfather, where are you when we need you?
Have we eaten too many lies?
Have we lost our taste for the primal acorn?
Much was stolen, so many people died. When they began to whip
the Indian children in those boarding schools and no one could help them
it must have seemed better to retreat to the invisible
mountains where wepam still goes on going along, where
talking with bears, roasting spring bulbs, and contemplating
the power of butterflies is not strange but beautiful.
I want to be limber in the world of ghosts
who tumble among indecisive clouds in the emigrant cities.
Can I get there from here, even with my wide and sodden ignorance?
Send me a sign, Grandfather. Something to show we are loved
and need not be afraid. Perhaps that power will help us
discern the trail-still barely visible-of fallen,
molten stars that pulse through this eternity.
JANICE GOULD is mixed-blood Koyank'auwi/Maidu poet who lives in Portland, Oregon. She had been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Astraea Foundation. Her books include Beneath My Heart, Earthquake Weather, and Alphabet. With the help of a Ford Foundation fellowship she completed her doctoral degree in English in 2000 at the University of New Mexico.
Copyright University of Nebraska Press 2002
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