1973    (Poem 9)

 

City kid in town of 250 in central Washington

in the shadow of Mt Adams, standing tall to

the westand openness in every other direction that

makes me feel like I can see into tomorrow.

 

Carport next door sends a tremor through me

as my neighbor stands under one small

electric lightbulb hanging from a cord,

cinnamon colored jacket, admiring

his elk that hangs from a hook

bucket full of its blood.

 

And everything I’ve known becomes

history as I survey my new surroundings

on the Yakama Indian Reservation,

only teacher that lives in town.

 

I was hired the day before school started.

A couple weeks earlier had been interviewed

after sleeping next to what I later found was the dump

and put on the sports coat and tie my uncle had given me

that was the job interview attire for both myself and my friends.

 

Colleen and friend Mike slept out with me and went to

the Wagon Wheel Café while I interviewed. Mike almost got

in a fight because they were charged for his coffee refill.

 

No doubt whomever was originally hired for my job

found something else at the last minute and it got passed

on to me. I was so clueless that I sat in the back yard of the

small house that the principal directed me to the first night,

overwhelmed by differentness and smoked a joint in this

town where everyone knew everything about everyone else.

 

But I was just a naïve city kid who’s experience in the world

of small towns was mostly limited to what I found hitchhiking west.

I tried to have my older Native American aide teach the rich knowledge

of their culture she knew to the kids but the administration said no.

 

After this year I decided to pitch a tipi on Orcas Island and ask the

Universe to provide me a new life direction, which I am so thankful it did.