He Came, He left, I will Survive

My face looks up into the greatness of heaven
As small white crystals fall into my eyes.
Filling my nose,
Laying on my cheeks
Those frozen drops melt
The pain in my heart,
My hands reach out into the greatness of heaven
As the wind blows across the palms of my hands
Taking my breath
Caressing my fingers
That precious touch
That removes
the fear in my chest.
He had come into my life
He left.
I will survive.
My feet stand firmly on the greatness of the earth
As the snow gathers round my toes.
Freezing the flesh
Taking away the rest
That lingered,
frozen pieces
Of my soul.

copyright Beverlee Pettit

Beverlee Pettit is a member of the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma. She was worked for the BIA moving from Albuqueerque to Northern California, then Arizona. A career change to Indian Helath Services took her to Anchorage, Alaska, where she remained until 2005 when she moved to Hoopa.

Alaska Music

Alaska music is made
when a bird sings
in the wind
as it whirls
like notes
from a flute.
It is made by the ocean
swirling around the rocks
as the tree sways
in its heaviness
yet floats in the wind.
The only way to play
this music
is with your ears.

Copyright Peter Nagasiak

Peter Nagasiak is a Yupik Eskimo. He and his wife, Beverlee Pettit, often perform poetry together. He with the haunting melody of his flute, and she with the steady heartbeat of her painted drum.

Back Where You Belong

I have often wondered
when my sister
would forgive me for
following my dream
instead of hers.

On nights when the moon
was a dark orb in a darker sky
I could feel her energy
visit my back deck
leaving sharp shards
of anger and hurt.

Sadly, I'd go out
on heavy summer nights
and snow dusted winters
to gather the sparking shards
of red, orange, and yellows.
Carefully I placed them in
a stone box, knowing
some day I would have
enough.

Enough finally came. Eventually,
all feelings must return to
their source, so I took the stone
box to the glassblower, who
crushed and melted
the reds, orange, and yellows
and blew them into an
ornament of light
for me to send to my sister.

Since then, my sadness
has lifted and the shards
that still collect on my deck
turn to butterflies in the
summer wind, and prisms of
rainbows in the snowflakes
of winter.

Mediha Saliba

Published March 15, 2006 Main Channel Press

Nurturer

I do not want the tomato plants

caged this year.

I want them wild and free.

I do not care if stems are stressed.

I do not care about the fat slug's rest

under a tomato that rotted itself

naturally in the dirt.

Cutworms, beetles, and spider mites,

control yourselves.

Oh, to watch something grow on it's own

with little effort from me.

July was dry, August not better.

The hose at my feet, the spigot

an arm's reach away.

'When I'm done watering myself,' I

tell the plants, 'perhaps.'

Frances Drabick 2008

Last Ride Before the Rain

From a poem of Rainer Maria Rilke

Am I falcon, storm,or great song

whose wings, whose winds, whose words ring

peal sounding brass

whistling lilt of lines?

Am I flight

or swept along

in vacuum vortex

truck tail

sail sail

from whose heart

does this melody unfold?

The hum of motors

whine of tires

bugsplat on my fat cheeks

winter soon.\

tamara Jenkinson