By Rain
Prud'homme-Cranford
When we weep
Mothers cry with us.
When we weep
Grandmothers pat their eyes.
Bits of blood and spit,
Dried salt and amniotic fluid
Make tears falling briefly,
Before we push them away--
As all weeping women before us.
Gathering strength from toes
Rooted in soil memories
And arms strong with
Carrying baskets
Of babies.
Carrying baskets
Of culture.
Weeping women cling
To the edge of dream
Crying for their lost children,
Crying for their husbands.
With sobs too deep and full
Of histories of biting back moans
That their tears fall as silent as death.
Against the rough periphery of memory
The whimper of ladies’ lamentations
Carve tributaries of grief inherent
In blood, from the fishing towns of
The Mississippi river to the
Buffalo plains of Saskatchewan.
Separated by geography.
United by blood.
They sing songs of sorrow
Into our unconscious actions---
Laced with brittle
Hope,
Survival,
Unstoppable Grace.
Copyright © Rain Prud'homme-Cranford. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rain
Prud'homme-Cranford is a poet, academic, musician and spoken word artist. Currently she is a Sutton Fellowship Doctoral student in English at the University of Oklahoma. She is the author of Smoked Mullet Cornbread Crawdad Memory, winner of the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award, Poetry. Her work has appeared in various journals including Ahani: Indigenous American Poetry and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Rain’s critical work focuses on (re)inserting Mvskogean and Creole Indigeneity into Southern Literary experience.
Hunted
By Kim Shuck
This morning is an ambush predator
Begins late with
Sirens and alarms that spin over the
Hills there is damp the
City raccoons bumble deceptively and
Dangerously on the
Porch kitten and I both with
Lifted hackles take some comfort in hot oats
Strawberries and sweetgrass
Smoke tufted slippers the rising
Hum of central heating kitten
Captures a brace of packing peanuts and
Gradually we subdue this hour together the dark
Lifts streetlights will blink their firefly impulse
Draining even now even
Now the armament of experienced
Early browsers makes smooth this edged thing this
Day curled against the core of vicious
Financial institution highwaymen and fear led
Pathologies of greed
Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
This morning is an ambush predator
Begins late with
Sirens and alarms that spin over the
Hills there is damp the
City raccoons bumble deceptively and
Dangerously on the
Porch kitten and I both with
Lifted hackles take some comfort in hot oats
Strawberries and sweetgrass
Smoke tufted slippers the rising
Hum of central heating kitten
Captures a brace of packing peanuts and
Gradually we subdue this hour together the dark
Lifts streetlights will blink their firefly impulse
Draining even now even
Now the armament of experienced
Early browsers makes smooth this edged thing this
Day curled against the core of vicious
Financial institution highwaymen and fear led
Pathologies of greed
Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Kim Shuck is a writer, visual artist, curator, frustrated mom and recovering sarcastic. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Her first solo book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee, was published by Greenfield Review press in 2005 and won the Diane Decorah Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Recent work has been included in the anthologies New Poets of the American West and I Was Indian. In June 2010 Kim had a month long co-residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Visit her on the web at www.kimshuck.com
Kim Shuck is a writer, visual artist, curator, frustrated mom and recovering sarcastic. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Her first solo book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee, was published by Greenfield Review press in 2005 and won the Diane Decorah Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Recent work has been included in the anthologies New Poets of the American West and I Was Indian. In June 2010 Kim had a month long co-residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Visit her on the web at www.kimshuck.com
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