1973 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(Poem 9)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
City kid in town of 250 in central Washington<\/p>\n
in the shadow of Mt Adams, standing tall to<\/p>\n
the westand openness in every other direction that<\/p>\n
makes me feel like I can see into tomorrow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Carport next door sends a tremor through me<\/p>\n
as my neighbor stands under one small<\/p>\n
electric lightbulb hanging from a cord,<\/p>\n
cinnamon colored jacket, admiring<\/p>\n
his elk that hangs from a hook<\/p>\n
bucket full of its blood.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And everything I\u2019ve known becomes<\/p>\n
history as I survey my new surroundings<\/p>\n
on the Yakama Indian Reservation,<\/p>\n
only teacher that lives in town.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was hired the day before school started.<\/p>\n
A couple weeks earlier had been interviewed<\/p>\n
after sleeping next to what I later found was the dump<\/p>\n
and put on the sports coat and tie my uncle had given me<\/p>\n
that was the job interview attire for both myself and my friends.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Colleen and friend Mike slept out with me and went to<\/p>\n
the Wagon Wheel Caf\u00e9 while I interviewed. Mike almost got<\/p>\n
in a fight because they were charged for his coffee refill.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No doubt whomever was originally hired for my job<\/p>\n
found something else at the last minute and it got passed<\/p>\n
on to me. I was so clueless that I sat in the back yard of the<\/p>\n
small house that the principal directed me to the first night,<\/p>\n
overwhelmed by differentness and smoked a joint in this<\/p>\n
town where everyone knew everything about everyone else.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But I was just a na\u00efve city kid who\u2019s experience in the world<\/p>\n
of small towns was mostly limited to what I found hitchhiking west.<\/p>\n
I tried to have my older Native American aide teach the rich knowledge<\/p>\n
of their culture she knew to the kids but the administration said no.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After this year I decided to pitch a tipi on Orcas Island and ask the<\/p>\n
Universe to provide me a new life direction, which I am so thankful it did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1973 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134800,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134794\/revisions\/134800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}