Manufactured Stress
I.
Manufactured stress creates false anxiety
to do their work
They watch through one-way glass
as you tire on the exercise wheel
first patented generations ago (on mice)
Add enticers to help you
Concede you prefer their bidding
Soon I hear you blubber
it was your idea all along
Your iluraq say they inherited positions
on the grind from our ancestors
long to believe you carry Tradition
when proudly raising an Indigene flag
If history began today
what would those anthropologists observe of you?
What do our children see?
Smile for their cameras
II.
Back then I mopped floors
tried scrubbing away the old stain
of muddy feet trekking to the mouse room
a kind of one-way mirror
They didn’t see me
I saw them emerge from their watch room
one paid the other for a bet made over you
He cashed in
when she said they could make you spin fastest
to the beat of their drum
Prayers for Peace
The wind carries prayers for peace
in winter prayers sting like the biting north wind
meet exposed tear-stained cheeks
Tears freeze and are wiped away
Prayers are heard
After the cold we go to our river
where prayers do not meet deaf ears
Alone we cannot send the ice to sea
Our faith is measured when every spring
what’s frozen becomes dangerous
rots
and is sent away
Copyright © Alice Rose Crow~Maar’aq. All rights reserved.
“Manufactured Stress,” “Prayers for Peace,” “Ilumun No. 1” first appeared in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (Volume 23, Number 2, Special Issue: Indigenous Women, University of Nebraska Press). 2002.
Alice Rose Crow~Maar’aq was born and raised on the Kusquqvak insouthwest Alaska and nests in Spenard. Her work appears in the Brevity blog, Camas, Yellow Medicine Review, River, Blood and Corn, Retort, Frontiers, and Standards. Her book-length collection, An Offering of Words, is well-underway. Crow works with Chip Livingston and Elissa Washuta to earn a seat as a member of the inaugural class of the Institute of American Indi(genous)an Arts low-rez MFA in Creative Writing Program. She is a member of the Orutsararmuit Native Council and is an original Calista and Bethel Native Corporation shareholder.
