The Powwow at the End of the World

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam
and topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgive
and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam
downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you
that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find
their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific
and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive
and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon
waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia
and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors
of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River
as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives
in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.
I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after
that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws
a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire
which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told
by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon
who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us
how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours;
the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many
of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing
with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.


-- Sherman Alexie (1966- ), Spokane/Coeur d/Alene poet, novelist, playwright, and filmmaker.

The Buried Life

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!—doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?—must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;
For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be—
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity—
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves—
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well—but 't is not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only—but this is rare—
When a belovèd hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.

-- Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) British Victorian poet and critic, forerunner of modernist poets.

How It Is With Us, and How It Is With Them

We become religious,
then we turn from it,
then we are in need and maybe we turn back.
We turn to making money,
then we turn to the moral life,
then we think about money again.
We meet wonderful people, but lose them
    in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.


--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), best-selling American poet, author, and teacher,  from Dog Songs, 2013

If Feeling Isn't In It

You can take it away, as far as I'm concerned—I'd rather spend the afternoon with a nice dog. I'm not kidding. Dogs have what a lot of poems lack: excitements and responses, a sense of play the ability to impart warmth, elation . . . .
                                                                              ----Howard Moss


Dogs will also lick your face if you let them.
Their bodies will shiver with happiness.
A simple walk in the park is just about
the height of contentment for them, followed
by a bowl of food, a bowl of water,
a place to curl up and sleep. Someone
to scratch them where they can't reach
and smooth their foreheads and talk to them.
Dogs also have a natural dislike of mailmen
and other bringers of bad news and will
bite them on your behalf. Dogs can smell
fear and also love with perfect accuracy.
There is no use pretending with them.
Nor do they pretend. If a dog is happy
or sad or nervous or bored or ashamed
or sunk in contemplation, everybody knows it.
They make no secret of themselves.
You can even tell what they're dreaming about
by the way their legs jerk and try to run
on the slippery ground of sleep.
Nor are they given to pretentious self-importance.
They don't try to impress you with how serious
or sensitive they are. They just feel everything
full blast. Everything is off the charts
with them. More than once I've seen a dog
waiting for its owner outside a café
practically implode with worry. “Oh, God,
what if she doesn't come back this time?
What will I do? Who will take care of me?
I loved her so much and now she's gone
and I'm tied to a post surrounded by people
who don't look or smell or sound like her at all.”
And when she does come, what a flurry
of commotion, what a chorus of yelping
and cooing and leaps straight up into the air!
It's almost unbearable, this sudden
fullness after such total loss, to see
the world made whole again by a hand
on the shoulder and a voice like no other.

-- John Brehm (1955- ) American poet, editor, and teacher

Pangur Bán

Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.

More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.

Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.

Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.

All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.

With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.

So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.

Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.

-- Anonymous 9th century monk, written in Irish, found in the monastery of St. Paul in Carinthia, southern Austria, translated by Seamus Heaney, with comments on the translation here.

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

--William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), pre-eminent Anglo-Irish lyric poet, playwright, and politician, one of the 20th century's greatest poets.

Prayer Service for National Day of remembrance of US Indian Boarding Schools

 

Prayer Service for the National Day of Remembrance

of US Indian Boarding Schools

September 30, 2023, 6:30 pm

Diocese of Missouri- Indigenous Ministry

 

Gathering Prayer                              from A Native American Liturgical Resource Book[i]

Creator, we give you thanks for all you are 

   and all you bring to us for our visit within your creation. 

In Jesus you place the Gospel in the center of this sacred circle 

   through which all creation is related. 

You show us the way to live a generous and compassionate life. 

Give us your strength to live together with respect and commitment 

   as we grow in your spirit. 

For you are God, now and forever. Amen.

 

First Reading               “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways, “by Louise Erdrich[ii]

Home’s the place we head for in our sleep.

Boxcars stumbling north in dreams

don’t wait for us. We catch them on the run.

The rails, old lacerations that we love,

shoot parallel across the face and break

just under Turtle Mountains. Riding scars

you can’t get lost. Home is the place they cross.

 

The lame guard strikes a match and makes the dark

less tolerant. We watch through cracks in boards   

as the land starts rolling, rolling till it hurts   

to be here, cold in regulation clothes.

We know the sheriff’s waiting at midrun

to take us back. His car is dumb and warm.

The highway doesn’t rock, it only hums

like a wing of long insults. The worn-down welts   

of ancient punishments lead back and forth.

 

All runaways wear dresses, long green ones,

the color you would think shame was. We scrub   

the sidewalks down because it's shameful work.   

Our brushes cut the stone in watered arcs   

and in the soak frail outlines shiver clear

a moment, things us kids pressed on the dark   

face before it hardened, pale, remembering

delicate old injuries, the spines of names and leaves.

Second Reading                                                              Jeremiah 31:15-17

Thus says the Lord:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
    lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
    she refuses to be comforted for her children,
    because they are no more.
¹⁶ Thus says the Lord:
Keep your voice from weeping
    and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work,
            says the Lord:
    they shall come back from the land of the enemy;
¹⁷ there is hope for your future,
            says the Lord:
    your children shall come back to their own country.

 

The Gospel                                                                        Matthew 5:1-10

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then Jesus began to speak, and taught them, saying:

     ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

     ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

     ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

      Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

     ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

     ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

     ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

     ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, 

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 

Remarks                                                                The Rev. Leslie Scoopmire

                                   Missioner for Indigenous Engagement, Diocese of Missouri

For generations, Native children as young a four were forcibly removed from their families and their homelands and sent to 408 boarding schools  in 37 states in an attempt to strip away their indigenous language, culture, and identities. By 1926, nearly 83% of Native children, over 60,000 children, were in boarding schools.[iii]Often operated by so-called Christian missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, the stated purpose of the Boarding School policy was education and assimilation. Children were punished severely for speaking their birth languages or for persisting in any cultural practice- even to the removal of their names. 

 

These schools often were hellscapes of physical punishment and abuse, degradation, and disease. Although, as of 2022 at least 500 children are verified by the U.S. government to have died from neglect, abuse, or disease, the bodies were rarely returned to their families. The Interior Department acknowledges that the actual number of deaths is in the thousands, possibly as many as 40,000. Thus far, 53 burial sites for Indigenous students at these schools have been identified.[iv] Those children who did survive bore the trauma of their experiences throughout their lives with devastating effect, affecting generations.

 

The Episcopal Church operated at least nine boarding schools, and Episcopalians financially supported many more, often in the mistaken belief that the children were being educated for independent lives in mainstream American society, “unshackled” from their pasts. This stated goal willfully ignored the persistence of discrimination and racism against people of color that still persists in American society. At General Convention 80 in 2022, the Episcopal Church formally resolved to form a fact-finding commission to research the church’s involvement in the Boarding School system and to hear and respond to the stories of survivors.

 

We gather today to affirm and lift up that work, and confess our grief over the pain and damage that still walks among us and our kindred who still suffer from these policies and actions, committing ourselves to learning the truth and learning from the truth of this assault on our Indigenous kindred and their lifeways.

 

A Litany of Hope           adapted from A Native American Liturgical Resource Book[v]

Leader:    Let us pray to our creator in the name of Jesus Christ our brother, saying, “Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole:”

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    We give thanks that we can gather together to remember our faithful ancestors who taught us compassion, respect and humility in the face of division and pride:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    We remember all our relations, those nearby and far away, those who suffer and are alone, those alienated and torn from family during the Boarding School era, and those who bear burdens too large to carry:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:     We give thanks to that You have brought us to this place where the sin of before is washed away and all beings are made new, as we take responsibility to remake frayed relationships:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    We ask that You come with power in our midst that your presence might be known to all through our own lives:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    Renew us with Your spirit, that we might soar as on eagles’ wings, loving each other as we love ourselves, as we all are one:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    Give us strength that we might help restore all relationships and bring peace and justice to all peoples; that we might hear and acknowledge the pain of children, families, communities, and nations torn asunder by the US Indian Boarding School policies:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    Endow us with Your vision so that we might see your healing in every broken place, and be willing to work for healing where harm has been done in our name:

All:         Lord, through us, make this sacred circle whole.

Leader:    Grant us grace that this circle might be a sign for us, to our children and to the seventh generation, that we have committed ourselves to be a witness to God's love by word and action, through Jesus Christ our Friend and Brother.

All:         AMEN. May it be so. AMEN.

 

The Lord’s Prayer        adapted from A Native American Liturgical Resource Book[vi]

O Great Spirit,

You are our Shepherd Chief     and the Most High Place,

whose home is everywhere       even beyond the stars and moon.

 

Whatever you want done          let it be done also everywhere.

Give us your gift of bread day by day.

 

Forgive our wrongs                    as we forgive those who wrong us.

Take us away from wrongdoings.

Free us from all evil.

For everything belongs to you.

Let your power and glory shine forever. Amen.

 

Dismissal

Most Holy God, send us forth from this time and this place determined to walk in paths of healing, reconciliation, and peace. Make us brave in acknowledging the pain that has come before us, and in answering it by action, with humility and love. In the name of Jesus Christ the Great Healer, who abides with the Creator and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

--Assembled by the Rev. Leslie Scoopmire, Indigenous Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, prayed at 6:30 pm on September 30, 2023 in the chapel of St. Martin's Episcopal Church.

Citations:

---

[i] “Gathering Prayer,” found in found in the Episcopal Council on Indigenous Ministry of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, A Native American Liturgical Resource Book.

[ii] Louise Erdrich, “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways,” from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems, 2003.

[iii] See the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Healing Voices Volume 1: A Primer on American Indain and Alaska Native Boarding Schools in the U.S., 2^nd edition: June 2020, at https://boardingschoolhealing.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/NABS-Newsletter-2020-7-1-spreads.pdf

[iv] Deena Zaru, “Report outlines federal ‘abuse’ of Native children at boarding schools,” May 11, 2022, at ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/report-outlines-federal-abuse-native-children-boarding-schools/story?id=84631918#:~:text=Hundreds%20died%20over%20the%20course,years%2C%20the%20Interior%20Department%20found.&text=More%20than%20500%20American%20Indian,according%20to%20a%20new%20report

[v] “A Litany of Hope,” adapted from the Holy Eucharist, The New Jamestown Covenant, November 1, 1997, found in the Episcopal Council on Indigenous Ministry of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, A Native American Liturgical Resource Book.

[vi] Taken from the Institution Service for Native American Missioner, November 21, 2004, Nez Perce, found in the Episcopal Council on Indigenous Ministry of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, A Native American Liturgical Resource Book.

Sycamore Gap

You’re history, said the tree to the wall;
the last crumbling remains of empire.

You are the invader, replied the wall.

I am the conqueror, said the tree to the wall;
sending platoons of seeds across my territory.

I stand alone, replied the wall.

I chose this valley, said the tree to the wall;
stretching my roots under your scored foundations.

I belong here, replied the wall.

I am growing taller, said the tree to the wall;
you’re a lonely stone sentry outstripped by a sapling.

I remain, replied the wall.

I am a survivor, said the tree to the wall;
I host the resurrection of each turning season.

I endure, replied the wall.

You’re the one they blame, said the tree to the wall;
insensate barrier, stone-deaf to the rough bark of liberty.

You cannot know, replied the wall.

--Zoe Mitchell, British poet and academic, published in The Guardian online, 27 January 2020. On September 28, 2023, the approximately 300-year-old tree was deliberately felled with a chainsaw and left lying atop Hadrian's Wall; a 16-year old teen and a 60-year-old man have been arrested in connection with the cutting down of the tree. The felling of the tree onto the wall also damaged the wall, it has been discovered.

There is, however, hope that in the spring, the tree's root system will send up shoots, and that, with time, the tree will again rise.

To the Holy Bible

O book! Life’s guide! How shall we part,
And thou so long seiz'd of my heart!
Take this last kiss, and let me weep
True thanks to thee, before I sleep.
Thou wert the first put in my hand,
When yet I could not understand,
And daily didst my young eyes lead
To letters, till I learnt to read.
But as rash youths, when once grown strong
Fly from their Nurses to the throng,
Where they new Consorts choose, & stick
To those, till either hurt or sick:
So with that first light gain'd from thee
Ran I in chase of vanity,
Cried dross for gold, and never thought
My first cheap Book had all I sought.
Long reign'd this vogue; and thou cast by
With meek, dumb looks didst woo mine eye,
And oft left open would'st convey
A sudden and most searching ray
Into my soul, with whose quick touch
Refining still, I strugled much.
By this milde art of love at length
Thou overcam'st my sinful strength,
And having brought me home, didst there
Shew me that pearl I sought elsewhere.
Gladness, and peace, and hope, and love,
The secret favors of the Dove,
Her quickning kindness, smiles and kisses,
Exalted pleasures, crowning blisses,
Fruition, union, glory, life
Thou didst lead to, and still all strife.
Living, thou wert my souls sure ease,
And dying mak'st me go in peace:
Thy next Effects no tongue can tell;
Farewel O book of God! farewel!

— Henry Vaughan (1621-1695), Welsh metaphysical poet, devotional writer, author, physician, and royalist during the Commonwealth period.

We Will Remember

When we are weary and in need of strength
When we are lost and sick at heart,
We remember him.

When we have a joy we crave to share
When we have decisions that are difficult to make
When we have achievements that are based on his
We remember him.

At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter
At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring,
We remember him.

At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer
At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
We remember him.

At the rising of the sun and at its setting
We remember him.

As long as we live, he too will live
For he is now a part of us,
As we remember him.

--from the Yizkor (May God Remember) service (Jewish memorial service), explained at My Jewish Learning. Prayer originally found at Eat Pray Love Liturgy.