Navaho

I Have Lived

/ Juliana Lightle / 4 Comments

Depression, sad days, melancholy.

Gone!!

At 26, I said, “To hell with this!

You control your life; live it!!

 

I tried forbidden liaisons, trained horses,

Went around the world, a cobra wrapped around my neck,

Walked the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir,

Watched the Taj Mahal reflected in still waters,

Stood before the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi,

Strolled the streets of Katmandu,

Talked with monks at the Shwedagon Pagoda,

Bargained with sticks in dirt, math our only common language,

Downed raw turtle eggs in Costa Rica,

Danced on table tops, sang “Adonai”,

Roamed empty roads across the Navaho Nation,

Raised two charming children,

Married, divorced four times.

 

I have lived, running on the rim of wonder.

 

 

This poem is a response to another Mary Oliver assignment for the SCN poetry class.  The prompt was to write about how we might have lived differently or made different choices.  On the whole I possess few to no regrets, have been to places never dreamed of, met astonishing people all over the world, and live exactly as I want to live.  I feel blessed.

 

Ten Little White Indians, Final Volume! (Spoilers Already Spoiled!)

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This post by a fellow blogger says a lot about what I think regarding certain movies in which American Indians are portrayed or in which they act. It also relates in some ways to my own previous posted poem, “Blood Quanturm”.

danielwalldammit's avatarnorthierthanthou

Bet y’all didn’t notice!

I am one short on my promise of 10 Little White Indians. Well, it turns out that my three-part series on White Indians has four parts, and there is surely a good Monty Python reference in there somewhere, but maybe we’ll save that for another day

***

Let us start with a brief consideration of the near misses.

WIND TALKERS (2002): I remember when this movie was on its way to the theaters, rumor had it that the flick was about the Navajo Code Talkers. Working as I did then on the Navajo Nation, I was (like a lot of my students and colleagues) really excited to see this part of American history portrayed on screen. My enthusiasm waned considerably when I realized it wasn’t about a Code Talker so much as a white guy who might have to kill a Code Talker if things took…

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Blood Quantum

/ Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

This poem is dedicated to Sherman Alexie whose poem, “13/16” begins with:

“I cut my self into sixteen equal pieces…”

My grandson cuts himself into 16 equal pieces:

4/16 Urhobo from Africa

4/16 Spanish from Spain

4/16 other European—two Swiss

German great great-grandfathers

(Werth and Kaiser), Irish, English

and who knows what

3/16 Mexican—whatever  mixtures that may be

1/16 Navaho

 

Who am I?  What am I?

Who are you? What are you?

Do we really know?

Who sets the rules?

-white men

-black

-Indian

-Native American

-Irish

-English

-German

from where and for whom?

He looks Navaho:

-blue black straight hair,

-pale brown skin,

-obsidian eyes.

One four year old girl asks him,

“Are you an American Indian?”

His six your old self says nothing.

She repeats,

“Are you an American Indian?”

He says, “It’s complicated.

The Navaho won’t claim him, too little blood.

He needs ¼ , not 1/16.

Caddo and Fort Sill Apache allow 1/16, not Navahos.

¼ blood is for

-Sioux

-Cheyenne

-Kiowa

-Navaho

1/8 works for Comanche and Pawnee.

Some Cherokees only want a Cherokee ancestor.

 

But he is none of those.

Is he Navaho?

Is he white?

The Old South goes by the one drop rule:

one drop of Negro…

Is a person with 99/100 percent white

and 1/100 black , black?

Who says?

Kids at school ask, What are you?”

He tells them.

They say, “You’re lying!”

 

I only know specifically about two ancestors,

the Swiss Germans.

Another great grandfather disappeared during the Civil War.

I don’t even know his name.

Who am I?

Who are you?

I think I’ll get a DNA test.

Then I’ll know how many pieces I need to cut myself into.