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A Little About
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Works In Progress
* The Real Man in the Moon: Sarah’s father tells her the real story about the Man in the Moon. His name is Siweyka which is the Lummi Indian word for ‘man.’ Siweyka loves to stare at the stars; his father tells him not to do this or he will float away into the sky. One night he leaves the Longhouse in Puget Sound and falls asleep on the beach staring at the stars. What really happened to Siweyka?
* Mazie and Charlie's Ghostly Adventures: Mazie and Charlie live in an Indian foster home next door to the reservation cemetery. She can see ghosts like her grandmother but is reluctant to share with Charlie about her gift. The two see a light moving in the cemetery and Mazie wants to see what’s happening. Mazie and Charlie follow a vandal in the reservation cemetery? Why?
* Mazie and Charlie's Continued Ghostly Adventures: Mazie informs Charlie that her friend appeared in her bedroom and pointed through the window at the carnival on the other side of the meadow next to the Indian pow wow grounds. She disappeared the day before. The duo go investigate and find the red car and Carmine's shawl is inside. Carmine's ghost is in the back seat. What happened?
* Mazie and Charlie Seek Ghost Treasure: Mazie and Charlie see the ghost of Stan the Man. They need to find his treasure map and the hidden money for granny to fix the plumbing. If it doesn’t get fixed, they might be moved from the Indian foster home and they want to stay with Granny. Uncle Herbie also wants the money. Who will find it?
* Alex Frog saves the Community from Danger: Alex was a small frog in the pond. He had a big croak and his job was to warn the other frogs when danger came close to the community pond. At night they had visitors, the dog, Opossum, and Raccoon. No one wanted to be Dinner. “Quit it. Quit it,” Alex had to say loud enough to be heard.
* Fatty Patty Turns the Table on Two Bullies: Patricia was a little round. Kids at school called her Fatty Patty. “I’m not fat.” She stands up for herself; no more name calling. She changes her outlook, her name, and turns the table on two of her school mates. How?
* Kayla and the Witch Woman: Kayla tends house for her seven brothers who are bewitched by a witch woman who wants Kayla's song and her voice after she hears her singing walking through the forest. She plans on putting a spell on Kayla but Kayla heard the witch woman singing---her power is in her toe and she instead sets her own plan in motion. Will it work?
CONTACT INFORMATION: [email protected]
* The Real Man in the Moon: Sarah’s father tells her the real story about the Man in the Moon. His name is Siweyka which is the Lummi Indian word for ‘man.’ Siweyka loves to stare at the stars; his father tells him not to do this or he will float away into the sky. One night he leaves the Longhouse in Puget Sound and falls asleep on the beach staring at the stars. What really happened to Siweyka?
* Mazie and Charlie's Ghostly Adventures: Mazie and Charlie live in an Indian foster home next door to the reservation cemetery. She can see ghosts like her grandmother but is reluctant to share with Charlie about her gift. The two see a light moving in the cemetery and Mazie wants to see what’s happening. Mazie and Charlie follow a vandal in the reservation cemetery? Why?
* Mazie and Charlie's Continued Ghostly Adventures: Mazie informs Charlie that her friend appeared in her bedroom and pointed through the window at the carnival on the other side of the meadow next to the Indian pow wow grounds. She disappeared the day before. The duo go investigate and find the red car and Carmine's shawl is inside. Carmine's ghost is in the back seat. What happened?
* Mazie and Charlie Seek Ghost Treasure: Mazie and Charlie see the ghost of Stan the Man. They need to find his treasure map and the hidden money for granny to fix the plumbing. If it doesn’t get fixed, they might be moved from the Indian foster home and they want to stay with Granny. Uncle Herbie also wants the money. Who will find it?
* Alex Frog saves the Community from Danger: Alex was a small frog in the pond. He had a big croak and his job was to warn the other frogs when danger came close to the community pond. At night they had visitors, the dog, Opossum, and Raccoon. No one wanted to be Dinner. “Quit it. Quit it,” Alex had to say loud enough to be heard.
* Fatty Patty Turns the Table on Two Bullies: Patricia was a little round. Kids at school called her Fatty Patty. “I’m not fat.” She stands up for herself; no more name calling. She changes her outlook, her name, and turns the table on two of her school mates. How?
* Kayla and the Witch Woman: Kayla tends house for her seven brothers who are bewitched by a witch woman who wants Kayla's song and her voice after she hears her singing walking through the forest. She plans on putting a spell on Kayla but Kayla heard the witch woman singing---her power is in her toe and she instead sets her own plan in motion. Will it work?
CONTACT INFORMATION: [email protected]
Suh-salti-mot, The Reluctant Mermaid
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Art Work In Progress
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Poetry and Prose
Death does not take a holiday
Death comes to town
Unwanted, uninvited,
Walking through.
Looking, first, this way,
Then that.
No respecter of persons.
Taking whom he will,
Leaving sorrow in his wake.
With tears falling, not His,
Going away for a while,
Until the next time he visits.
Looking for someone to take.
Adrienne Hunter, Xayle
Who am I?
I am Indian. I am White.
Can't you see?
Skin not so brown
not totally white.
Who am I?
I am me.
I am an Indian.
But you want me to be like you…
Acculturated? Assimilated?
I can't.
I am me.
I am an Indian.
You want me to give up all that I am?
Who am I?
I am me.
I am an Indian.
If I change who I am.
How I think.
How I feel.
How I am.
I won't be me.
I would be a shadow.
An empty shell.
I won't.
I can’t.
I am me.
I am an Indian.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Dressing
1 Would you do the dressing, I was
2 asked by Edward who was told he
3 could find someone to do it for
4 him but only in the event he
5 wanted to, perhaps someone
6 special, so he did, and when
7 asked, I looked at my friend
8 who looked at me, and we didn't
9 really know what to say, so we
10 nodded our heads to indicate it was
11 something we could do (but had never
12 done before).
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
we…
1 we nodded our heads when asked
would you come over for a prayer
2 we nodded our heads when the time came
to lead the individual prayers
3 we nodded our heads when asked
to hold hands and pray
4 we nodded our heads when asked
would you come back next week
5 we nodded our heads when told the
pain was deepening in our friend
6 we nodded our heads when the tears
fell with no words to express our feelings
7 we nodded our heads when asked
would you take care of the clothes
8 we nodded our heads when asked
would you dress the body
9 we nodded our heads when asked
would you be a casketbearer
10 we nodded our heads and wondered
why our friend had to die
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Teq-chole
Morning dew,
Nature's beauty,
Glistening on teq-chole's web…
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Mudflats at Dabob Bay
Running on the wooden plank deck
of a house built over the water on pilings,
with my sister chasing me,
laughing, screaming in play,
in the sunshine, sometimes in the rain,
and sometimes accompanying me to our
outhouse with a toilet hole, an oval frame
for the ebb and flow of the sea down below.
Mudflats, the smell,
the smell of fresh cut logs and bark
smothering the air with its fragrance, along
with the wonder of warm cooked waffles
with the tiny squares cooked into them
by uncle Jay.
Then there was my father's clothes,
with the smell of the woods,
his gray and white pinstripe work shirt
with his short logging pants and cork boots
and the sound of the metal corks sticking
into the wood porch as he walked and how they
pulled out again as he moved onto the next step.
His whiskers sharp like needles
and his dislike of me.
Childhood memories flood over me
like the tide,
coming and going,
there, at Dabob Bay.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
life
Breathing air,
just being alive,
grazing on the table of life,
reservation sunsets,
tangerine, mauve, lemon…eyes feasting
grazing on the table of life,
rain rich grass, Holsteins,
emerald waves racing across pastures, cows
grazing on the table of life,
men, women, changing partners,
left and right, and back again,
grazing on the table of life,
society, growing,
overpopulation, war, people fighting,
grazing on the table of life
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Vision
Yawning. I'm asked
Did you sleep well last night? I think so
I say, silently, quietly, inside; No, I think not,
she says, to me, looking hard at me… You were crying aloud
last night, I heard. Afraid? again…
It happened Little bits, pieces
come back to me, and dance in my mind.
Always the same, yet different.
Yes, blackness… sparkling, fiery
eyes aglow, glistening red, like rubies,
even in daylight, I see it. It's not real
I tell myself. Because I'm
sleeping. I'm dreaming, I must be,
I tell you. and tell myself when
I wake up crying, shouting in my bed,
hollering. My sister hears me now
from her house. She listens intently on her porch
in the night. Is something going on? In my head,
the vision takes over it seems…
Finally, the priest beckoned comes, exorcises the house…
It works. Almost.
Only for a week. Am I going
mad runs through my mind.
Like I'm aware when it happens.
Black leaves oval, sharp, quiver
on the ceiling. Thirty-seven of them. Truly.
then the leaves open up thin parchment wings
flutter. Quiver. coal red eyes
race around in my head.
Aren’t you sleeping well, she asks, again.
I yawn. Again, nodding. to myself, I say, I think so…
But I think I need to call a shaman, medicine man,
to sing, and dance and demand the demons depart
to make them leave the darkness of my mind.
I nod again, I'm okay, I say. I lie.
My red rimmed eyes tell on me.
In the nightmare of my mind.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Untitled
speed drugs,
adrenaline jumping, pumping,
my heart responding to it,
beating, pounding hard in my chest,
my hair beginning to crawl as I sit quietly
waiting for the effect.
orange firey glints matching the tangerine
bursting across the sky
the color I seen when struck by his hand
fear the all familiar rush
cotton mouth, veins pumping,
my heart responding with a rush to flight
but where? Into the darkness. Outside?
greed a hungry drift, down the river
crowding in line,
grabbing another beer before the one I'm holding is done,
yellow teeth. His.
a pansy with a black beard
the stain of water dripping 10 years on a porcelain sink
the feathers of a canary drifting slowly
along the floor -- as if they had life
like me.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Indian Girl: a fable
Don't talk when you're with big people; you stand there and eat your supper--there's not enough chairs and you're still growing; eat that burnt toast, it's good for you, it will make you sing good; don't talk back, it's not acceptable behavior; listen when old people talk, you might learn a thing or two; make the fire and peel the potatoes; set the table, go in the living room, the visitors eat first; don't look at boys, you're too young, you might get in trouble; you come in now, you're too big to play outside; I said, don't you look at boys, they might think you're forward; respect your elders; help the old ones, get them water, take their arm, no matter how gruff they are, it's just their way; when you're married, you stay with that man; you belong to him; you're with his people now, don't you come home when you fight, you married him; you made your bed, lie in it; no matter if he slaps you, you're his wife; roll over, spread your legs; cook the dinner, sweep the floor, feed the kids, clean the house, pick up his clothes and wash them; fix yourself up, he might leave you; make yourself exciting, alluring; even if the baby cries, let it, till he rolls off of you; then tend your baby then yourself; and for goodness sake, let him sleep, don't let the baby cry at night, it might wake him up, he needs his rest; when he comes home tired, hang on his every word so he feels important; no matter he cuts you off when you talk; he's the one who brings home the bacon not you; (but what if he doesn't come home at night?) no matter, it's you he married. Right?
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Night Sounds I
Out on the main road of Lummi Shore, a block away,
cars race by with faceless drivers
frantically going no where and
coming back again
from somewhere, no one knows, throughout the night,
the same roar of the engine,
the same car, the same rhythm
of the low throbbing music, pounding
the sound so loud drowning out the legion of frogs
croaking, singing in my pond behind my cabin.
On a hot summer night, slugs crawl slowly with deep purpose in mind,
bright yellow pansies with their black bearded chins
coax them on, teasing them,
'find me if you can' as their heads
bow in the ripple of the night wind
as it blows the tide in over
hardened mud flats of Bellingham Bay.
The tide roars quietly in the back of my mind, the
sound of the ocean in a shell. Or is it the white sound
that I hear in my head. Left over from being
hit. One time. Long ago.
Drifting. Drifting. Roaring.
The night settles in for the duration
while the cars with faceless drivers race
along the bluff, going no where, always somewhere.
The wind behind them, pushing the tide in.
The cotton wood tree, that I keep cutting down
keeps growing back, its branches scratch at my window
the wind at its back. Doris, my little dog,
settles down under the covers and
lays her long back next to mine after I'm asleep.
Later in the night, her head on the next pillow
sleeping soundly, oblivious to the cars
racing by on the bluff. Going no where,
always somewhere throughout the night.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Nightsounds II
Faceless people,
drinking,
driving,
going no where
somewhere
only in their dreams
with empty Bud boxes
left behind
artifacts of their passing.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Nightsounds III
Faceless people
shooting, drugging,
always in a fog,
going somewhere,
anywhere,
quickly,
who cares.
As long as it is going.
Somewhere.
Until suddenly, the car stops,
bodies flying.
Still.
Forever,
on the reservation road,
with white crosses
like a crooked
cross
X marking
the spot.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Virgil
Some people are real characters,
you know. Like Virgil.
Once, he was a child. He used to run,
and jump and play. Laugh even.
But now, he's 62 or 3,or even 74, disabled.
He shuffles when he walks
and has arthritis, it seems.
Virgil had dreams, too,
when he was young.
Now his dreams have turned to dying.
Like his brother, who died last year.
He took him away from the reservation
a while back, but he came back after
the talk died down. Virgil used children
you see. Petting them. Kindly at first.
His own. Then his
nieces or nephews, it didn't matter
which. He was always so nice
and would volunteer to stay home
and baby sit. Then it was his grandchildren
but he got caught, finally,
well almost.
Now he's back home. I think he thinks that
no one remembers what he used to do.
But people do. It crosses my mind, every time
I see him crossing the road, with his
scruffy gray hair and his coffee cup in hand.
Life has its little interplays and turnabouts
when it comes to people. Some say he's
dying or its hepatitis or something.
I hear tell, the family called for help,
from the medicine man, it seems.
One of the little girls in the house where he lives
a grandniece, now, it seems, has nightmares,
dreaming of big scary snakes coming into
her room at night.
I wonder if that old
Virgil is skulking around,
thinking no one knows.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Kris
I enter the room.
Kris is lying there.
Cold, hard, unyielding.
I talk quietly at first.
Hesitantly.
She refuses to speak.
I continue to talk--at least to myself.
She's not listening.
She refuses to move
so I take the initiative to dress her.
There is no give--on her part. It's up to me,
her joints are quite stiff.
I have to pull on
her pants,
her slip, and even
her dress.
Still no cooperation.
It's time for make-up,
to dress up her appearance.
Just a little lipstick and liquid eyeliner, and
she always blotted her lips.
Try pressing your lips together, I say,
quietly. She doesn't though.
She's stubborn, I tell myself.
So I pat her lips for her.
Finally she's ready.
The odor, unexplainable, unforgettable,
clings to my clothes.
only in my mind
Like the image of her,
lying there so still, with
her hands folded
forever.
X'ay-le
a class assignment...
An old woman sits
under the shade of a tree
in Arizona.
She eats bread,
dry and hard,
under the roof in the shadow--
sightless in the dark.
The lean-to shivers from the movement.
Thus visions move
through the night.
The morning is of the temperature
of a winter's cold.
Dawn, the shiver, fading
darkness and light.
Frost disappears like an ice sliver
melting under a stare.
I see myself on a curving rainbow.
I feel that I am anxious as I
move away from the edge
in my thought; and
I fly over the bridge of many colors
in the darkness of my mind.
Nonetheless, I quiver
the way the wind blows,
over and through my body.
When my nightmare was near its end,
the black folds of the dream
poured under dark shadows
out of sight, in the nightmare
of my mind.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Death does not take a holiday
Death comes to town
Unwanted, uninvited,
Walking through.
Looking, first, this way,
Then that.
No respecter of persons.
Taking whom he will,
Leaving sorrow in his wake.
With tears falling, not His,
Going away for a while,
Until the next time he visits.
Looking for someone to take.
Adrienne Hunter, Xayle
Who am I?
I am Indian. I am White.
Can't you see?
Skin not so brown
not totally white.
Who am I?
I am me.
I am an Indian.
But you want me to be like you…
Acculturated? Assimilated?
I can't.
I am me.
I am an Indian.
You want me to give up all that I am?
Who am I?
I am me.
I am an Indian.
If I change who I am.
How I think.
How I feel.
How I am.
I won't be me.
I would be a shadow.
An empty shell.
I won't.
I can’t.
I am me.
I am an Indian.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Dressing
1 Would you do the dressing, I was
2 asked by Edward who was told he
3 could find someone to do it for
4 him but only in the event he
5 wanted to, perhaps someone
6 special, so he did, and when
7 asked, I looked at my friend
8 who looked at me, and we didn't
9 really know what to say, so we
10 nodded our heads to indicate it was
11 something we could do (but had never
12 done before).
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
we…
1 we nodded our heads when asked
would you come over for a prayer
2 we nodded our heads when the time came
to lead the individual prayers
3 we nodded our heads when asked
to hold hands and pray
4 we nodded our heads when asked
would you come back next week
5 we nodded our heads when told the
pain was deepening in our friend
6 we nodded our heads when the tears
fell with no words to express our feelings
7 we nodded our heads when asked
would you take care of the clothes
8 we nodded our heads when asked
would you dress the body
9 we nodded our heads when asked
would you be a casketbearer
10 we nodded our heads and wondered
why our friend had to die
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Teq-chole
Morning dew,
Nature's beauty,
Glistening on teq-chole's web…
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Mudflats at Dabob Bay
Running on the wooden plank deck
of a house built over the water on pilings,
with my sister chasing me,
laughing, screaming in play,
in the sunshine, sometimes in the rain,
and sometimes accompanying me to our
outhouse with a toilet hole, an oval frame
for the ebb and flow of the sea down below.
Mudflats, the smell,
the smell of fresh cut logs and bark
smothering the air with its fragrance, along
with the wonder of warm cooked waffles
with the tiny squares cooked into them
by uncle Jay.
Then there was my father's clothes,
with the smell of the woods,
his gray and white pinstripe work shirt
with his short logging pants and cork boots
and the sound of the metal corks sticking
into the wood porch as he walked and how they
pulled out again as he moved onto the next step.
His whiskers sharp like needles
and his dislike of me.
Childhood memories flood over me
like the tide,
coming and going,
there, at Dabob Bay.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
life
Breathing air,
just being alive,
grazing on the table of life,
reservation sunsets,
tangerine, mauve, lemon…eyes feasting
grazing on the table of life,
rain rich grass, Holsteins,
emerald waves racing across pastures, cows
grazing on the table of life,
men, women, changing partners,
left and right, and back again,
grazing on the table of life,
society, growing,
overpopulation, war, people fighting,
grazing on the table of life
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Vision
Yawning. I'm asked
Did you sleep well last night? I think so
I say, silently, quietly, inside; No, I think not,
she says, to me, looking hard at me… You were crying aloud
last night, I heard. Afraid? again…
It happened Little bits, pieces
come back to me, and dance in my mind.
Always the same, yet different.
Yes, blackness… sparkling, fiery
eyes aglow, glistening red, like rubies,
even in daylight, I see it. It's not real
I tell myself. Because I'm
sleeping. I'm dreaming, I must be,
I tell you. and tell myself when
I wake up crying, shouting in my bed,
hollering. My sister hears me now
from her house. She listens intently on her porch
in the night. Is something going on? In my head,
the vision takes over it seems…
Finally, the priest beckoned comes, exorcises the house…
It works. Almost.
Only for a week. Am I going
mad runs through my mind.
Like I'm aware when it happens.
Black leaves oval, sharp, quiver
on the ceiling. Thirty-seven of them. Truly.
then the leaves open up thin parchment wings
flutter. Quiver. coal red eyes
race around in my head.
Aren’t you sleeping well, she asks, again.
I yawn. Again, nodding. to myself, I say, I think so…
But I think I need to call a shaman, medicine man,
to sing, and dance and demand the demons depart
to make them leave the darkness of my mind.
I nod again, I'm okay, I say. I lie.
My red rimmed eyes tell on me.
In the nightmare of my mind.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Untitled
speed drugs,
adrenaline jumping, pumping,
my heart responding to it,
beating, pounding hard in my chest,
my hair beginning to crawl as I sit quietly
waiting for the effect.
orange firey glints matching the tangerine
bursting across the sky
the color I seen when struck by his hand
fear the all familiar rush
cotton mouth, veins pumping,
my heart responding with a rush to flight
but where? Into the darkness. Outside?
greed a hungry drift, down the river
crowding in line,
grabbing another beer before the one I'm holding is done,
yellow teeth. His.
a pansy with a black beard
the stain of water dripping 10 years on a porcelain sink
the feathers of a canary drifting slowly
along the floor -- as if they had life
like me.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Indian Girl: a fable
Don't talk when you're with big people; you stand there and eat your supper--there's not enough chairs and you're still growing; eat that burnt toast, it's good for you, it will make you sing good; don't talk back, it's not acceptable behavior; listen when old people talk, you might learn a thing or two; make the fire and peel the potatoes; set the table, go in the living room, the visitors eat first; don't look at boys, you're too young, you might get in trouble; you come in now, you're too big to play outside; I said, don't you look at boys, they might think you're forward; respect your elders; help the old ones, get them water, take their arm, no matter how gruff they are, it's just their way; when you're married, you stay with that man; you belong to him; you're with his people now, don't you come home when you fight, you married him; you made your bed, lie in it; no matter if he slaps you, you're his wife; roll over, spread your legs; cook the dinner, sweep the floor, feed the kids, clean the house, pick up his clothes and wash them; fix yourself up, he might leave you; make yourself exciting, alluring; even if the baby cries, let it, till he rolls off of you; then tend your baby then yourself; and for goodness sake, let him sleep, don't let the baby cry at night, it might wake him up, he needs his rest; when he comes home tired, hang on his every word so he feels important; no matter he cuts you off when you talk; he's the one who brings home the bacon not you; (but what if he doesn't come home at night?) no matter, it's you he married. Right?
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Night Sounds I
Out on the main road of Lummi Shore, a block away,
cars race by with faceless drivers
frantically going no where and
coming back again
from somewhere, no one knows, throughout the night,
the same roar of the engine,
the same car, the same rhythm
of the low throbbing music, pounding
the sound so loud drowning out the legion of frogs
croaking, singing in my pond behind my cabin.
On a hot summer night, slugs crawl slowly with deep purpose in mind,
bright yellow pansies with their black bearded chins
coax them on, teasing them,
'find me if you can' as their heads
bow in the ripple of the night wind
as it blows the tide in over
hardened mud flats of Bellingham Bay.
The tide roars quietly in the back of my mind, the
sound of the ocean in a shell. Or is it the white sound
that I hear in my head. Left over from being
hit. One time. Long ago.
Drifting. Drifting. Roaring.
The night settles in for the duration
while the cars with faceless drivers race
along the bluff, going no where, always somewhere.
The wind behind them, pushing the tide in.
The cotton wood tree, that I keep cutting down
keeps growing back, its branches scratch at my window
the wind at its back. Doris, my little dog,
settles down under the covers and
lays her long back next to mine after I'm asleep.
Later in the night, her head on the next pillow
sleeping soundly, oblivious to the cars
racing by on the bluff. Going no where,
always somewhere throughout the night.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Nightsounds II
Faceless people,
drinking,
driving,
going no where
somewhere
only in their dreams
with empty Bud boxes
left behind
artifacts of their passing.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Nightsounds III
Faceless people
shooting, drugging,
always in a fog,
going somewhere,
anywhere,
quickly,
who cares.
As long as it is going.
Somewhere.
Until suddenly, the car stops,
bodies flying.
Still.
Forever,
on the reservation road,
with white crosses
like a crooked
cross
X marking
the spot.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Virgil
Some people are real characters,
you know. Like Virgil.
Once, he was a child. He used to run,
and jump and play. Laugh even.
But now, he's 62 or 3,or even 74, disabled.
He shuffles when he walks
and has arthritis, it seems.
Virgil had dreams, too,
when he was young.
Now his dreams have turned to dying.
Like his brother, who died last year.
He took him away from the reservation
a while back, but he came back after
the talk died down. Virgil used children
you see. Petting them. Kindly at first.
His own. Then his
nieces or nephews, it didn't matter
which. He was always so nice
and would volunteer to stay home
and baby sit. Then it was his grandchildren
but he got caught, finally,
well almost.
Now he's back home. I think he thinks that
no one remembers what he used to do.
But people do. It crosses my mind, every time
I see him crossing the road, with his
scruffy gray hair and his coffee cup in hand.
Life has its little interplays and turnabouts
when it comes to people. Some say he's
dying or its hepatitis or something.
I hear tell, the family called for help,
from the medicine man, it seems.
One of the little girls in the house where he lives
a grandniece, now, it seems, has nightmares,
dreaming of big scary snakes coming into
her room at night.
I wonder if that old
Virgil is skulking around,
thinking no one knows.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le
Kris
I enter the room.
Kris is lying there.
Cold, hard, unyielding.
I talk quietly at first.
Hesitantly.
She refuses to speak.
I continue to talk--at least to myself.
She's not listening.
She refuses to move
so I take the initiative to dress her.
There is no give--on her part. It's up to me,
her joints are quite stiff.
I have to pull on
her pants,
her slip, and even
her dress.
Still no cooperation.
It's time for make-up,
to dress up her appearance.
Just a little lipstick and liquid eyeliner, and
she always blotted her lips.
Try pressing your lips together, I say,
quietly. She doesn't though.
She's stubborn, I tell myself.
So I pat her lips for her.
Finally she's ready.
The odor, unexplainable, unforgettable,
clings to my clothes.
only in my mind
Like the image of her,
lying there so still, with
her hands folded
forever.
X'ay-le
a class assignment...
An old woman sits
under the shade of a tree
in Arizona.
She eats bread,
dry and hard,
under the roof in the shadow--
sightless in the dark.
The lean-to shivers from the movement.
Thus visions move
through the night.
The morning is of the temperature
of a winter's cold.
Dawn, the shiver, fading
darkness and light.
Frost disappears like an ice sliver
melting under a stare.
I see myself on a curving rainbow.
I feel that I am anxious as I
move away from the edge
in my thought; and
I fly over the bridge of many colors
in the darkness of my mind.
Nonetheless, I quiver
the way the wind blows,
over and through my body.
When my nightmare was near its end,
the black folds of the dream
poured under dark shadows
out of sight, in the nightmare
of my mind.
Adrienne Hunter, X'ay-le