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Visions

Christine Stark

Lately, hay bales are scattered buffalo on

the horizon, swinging tails, nuzzling young. Last

year’s driftwood is a buffalo skull knocking a rocky

shore―its great eyes and nostrils chewed open

holes, its woody dreadlocks made of thawing

seaweed.

I had a dream last year:

on an island of writers

I looked to my right saw buffalo

charging up out of the water throwing

off seaweed, nostrils foaming, snorting,

feet and knees rising strong as

thunder.

My students say Indians are lazy, their

children dirty. America owes them

nothing.

An orange tabby across Highway 10 is a fox, a weasel, then a cat again.

In a clump of trees outside Lake Park a black face burns scarlet eyes.

A man in my kitchen catches the corner of my eye, then disappears.

I dream of a golden cat―one settles in our garage, a broken tail.

Great grandfather visits my

dreams. He likes wild rice, chicken,

salt. He sits in a chair, smiles, says

boozhoo. He has been waiting

for me.

Great grandfather visits me in my Ford

Escort, south of Willmar, where he lived

eighty years ago in the white towns

that get smaller and smaller

the further south I

travel.

Grey and red smooth stones

drop out of a hand, held between

forefinger and thumb, then let go

each one more minute than the one

before.

A man leaning on a street

corner in Blomkest turns into

great grandfather―trapped, no

place for Indians―then

turns back into his busy

self.

Olivia, Sanborn, Morton, Windom.

I hear myself say I would kill myself if I had to live here and mean it.

Raymond, Roseland, Maynard, Wilder.

I begin to suffocate―the towns―

a noose round my neck. I crack

a window. Two blackbirds

smack the windshield, one

right after the other, then a

bat. It takes me eight hours to

drive five, I don’t know why.

Great grandfather was taken when

Grandma was three. He disappeared―

we don’t know why, we don’t know

where.

Home again―

I run to a lake see

loon, beaver, heron,

fish. Cousins, I ask, what

do you have to tell me?

Heron lifts to the other

side, its great two-toned gray

wings slap against the sky.

Beaver flips its tail, slides

under. Fish flashes a side,

slips into the depths. Loon

sits hunchback, turns its

head.

I run back into town, time

slips off its wheel.

I am in the future

already seen by my

ancestors: grasshoppers

shooting fire, sky of charcoal,

metal birds, mass death.

Houses, cars, lawn mowers left uncovered

alongside garages, plastic garbage

cans, ceramic lawn bunnies, children’s

forts rise up out of the earth taking

the place of trees, flowers, grasses,

woods. The people are gone―

disappeared. I could walk through

their lives, open front doors, read

yesterday’s mail, drink cold coffee,

feed hungry dogs. See what

their lives were about.

I run deeper into town.

Twenty sparrows sit on a telephone wire,

watching, waiting. It snows in May.

Buffalo herds escape fences, run

free through town. Deer shit like dogs,

crouched on their thin hind legs.

Great changes are coming,

my cousins tell me.