“ The Song of Bright Aspen Dove “

A Full length Narrative Poem

By: Asia Rachael Koheen as:

LuNae S. Carter

1.

I remember the shaman

      The night my grandfather died

         Alike old men, too old for smells or war

             But I don’t remember what they said, if they spoke

      Other than the call to the spirits we were allowed to overheard

              Whether any understood it but them, or not.

               My Grandfather and the shaman, I mean, the spirits know more than they tell.

I remember the shaman

       Refused to allow me to meet his eyes the night my grandfather died

          Alike old men, caught in a past more real to them than to me,

            Plenty buffalo, much coup, animals that begged to selected because there were

                 So many others to fill the pots, to fill the bellies, to make babies strong

                         Days I don’t believe any more than I do him.

I remember the shaman, but not what he said

        Beyond the chants meant to draw the spirit world near so my grandfather wouldn’t

                  Have to make the journey to the night fires in the sky alone.

                        Where others waited, who’d know the days the old shaman claimed.

            Though it lessened his prestige because he couldn’t make the buffalo calls

                   Draw them to the channel sand the gullies like his grandfather

     But I think he said they listened to the white eyes thunder and were afraid ~

          But I think he said they listened to the white eyes thunder and were afraid ~

       Like we children were, when the Spirits rose across the plains on their horses

                    made of thunder and Grandfather seemed to want to join the night fires

                 Where dancing and boasting and jesting and gamboling were without malice

              Plenty buffalo, much coup, animals that begged to selected because there were

                           So many others to fill the pots, to fill the bellies, to make babies strong

And I remember,

       The shaman as my grandfather breathed his last, without words, he seemed to shrink

           As if a part of him left with his younger brother, leaving him alone

                 Alike old men, caught in a past more real to them than to me,

                                   And I remember,

        When they sent me for water

          to hide the face that my grandfather’s spirit had escaped

             at last to where his dreams waited…that he stopped to brush aside the leaves

                      near my knee and lapped, where I could hear it, then rose to the night sky

                         in the form of a snowy owl, and I remembered.

                               As I do now.

2.

I remember the winter of no grass, no buffalo and no antelope,

I remember my father staying home in the deep snows as we laughed, and talked,

       And the old men gamboled and told stories that chased away the chill winds

          gnawing at the undersides of our hide teepees, like hunger against

             our innermost bones,

when a wary old rabbit was greeted with the same joy as a yearling buck

and we ate stew with dried weed stalks and wild onions that tasted as if

  they just passed the rabbit over the cook pot and handed it to the next family,

       but I remember how close we felt to one another as the old and the young

         grew more quiet in the times when the hunters were away

as if the animals had followed Grandfather’s spirit to avoid the unusual cold

and the deep snow that melted down into our leggings and made tempers flare

          especially when the damp wood would not,

yes, I remember the winter of no grass, no buffalo and no antelope,

                 as if it were only yesterday,

but what I remember most is Antelope Dancing Drum having to come to live

with his father’s mother when the coughing sickness sped his father toward the

nighttime camp fires in the sky that winter of no grass, no buffalo but plenty stews

rich and fragrant, for he and his grandmother shared what they had and the stories

          she told kept the old ones nodding to themselves in memory

              and his feats among the stick-thin boys of his age testing themselves against him

till the passage of the winter when the buffalo would return in great numbers

       in apology to their red skinned brothers for hunger they had shared

      “ What do girls know?  “ He’d challenge me, but then look to see if I followed?

Till tthe day he found a crippled bull and drove away the wolf before it could summons

the local pack on whose lands he trespassed in hunger.

             Mindful to leave a good portion for Brother Wolf

                who’d chased the old herd master into snows too deep for his old legs

                     and that night the wolves sang in pleasure of full bellies

                          accepting the spotted stranger who’d led them to steaming bones

                          and full bellies

While we ate a stew, rich and fragrant with dark red chunks of meat,

      And as we dried strips for the deepest snows, he and his grandmother shared

             what they had and the stories of her youth in the north where snows stay late

                  to the very edge of the Moon of Corn Planting, for

          she told kept the old ones nodding to themselves in memory

              and his feats among the stick thin boys of his age testing themselves against him

till the passage of the winter when the buffalo would return in great numbers

       in apology to their red skinned brothers for hunger they had shared.

      “ What do girls know?  “ He challenged me, but then looked to see if I followed?

  I knew enough to wash the little clay birds back to their riverbed and tell the boys

          they took wings and flew away!

While we ate a stew, rich and fragrant with dark red chunks of meat,

        when the buffalo returned with the grass and soft breezes lifting the eagle’s wings

               as they hunted what rabbits remained, and mice, for their young,

                 just as we had been forced to do, in the winter of no buffalo.

3.

I remember that spring when my older sister still living at home came of age.

   I remember as if it were only yesterday.

The shaman watched as his apprentice danced to the songs due to the spirit land

      as the buffalo hide-and-wood dancing drums beat out their ageless rhythm

          as his high pitched, thin voice sang out the wordless melody of communicating

                demanding notice from the other side of the eternal

to bless this union, to bless our land with crops and rain

        as proof we have not forgotten our link to them

    to remind them of their link to us,

and I remember watching with eyes wide open expectantly, one day

This would be me, wearing the sacred yellow pollen from our mother the Earth,

    Wearing the white doeskin of maturity and coming of age,

       wearing the mantle of home and promised generations

         wearing our mother’s smile

          as our grandmother had smiled at her

                in the long summers before we were born

My sister and the mother of her future husband danced, swaying in delight,

   Muscles as corded as wood, hearts as light as the clouds that gathered

        To watch and to listen to the song that linked us to them

         To watch and to listen to the song that linked us to those beyond

Clasp hands,

Then the ones to be joined,

Clasped hands,

   Entry into a world new, uniting the past and the future in us,

        As I watched with eyes wide open expectantly,

            for one day

This would be me,

        wearing the sacred yellow pollen from our mother the Earth,

    wearing the mantle of home and promised generations

         wearing our mother’s smile

          as our grandmother had smiled at her

                in the long summers before we were born…

As the shaman watched as his apprentice danced to the songs due to the spirit land

      as the buffalo hide-and-wood dancing drums beat out their ageless rhythm

          as his high pitched, thin voice sang out the wordless melody of communicating

                demanding notice from the other side of the eternal

to bless this union, to bless our land with crops and rain

        as proof we have not forgotten our link to them

    to remind them of their link to us,

I remember as if it were only yesterday.

       As though she came back to us

          to bring back our mother’s smile

        as our grandmother smiled at her

in the long summers before we were born…

4

I remember the smell of war paint, of fear, of sweat

  The excitement that made the hours of preparation

     As mystical as the stories told to us by the old men,

The fathers, the sons, who exchanged the arrowheads meant for meat

          to slide between the rib bones for arrowheads

                of flint and courage and fear and sweat

     meant for an enemy.

The loud cries

   of untried warriors waiting their time

     of sharp hooves and feet stamped in petulance

        of being denied

The loud cries

    Of warrior’s guttural warnings against the enemy

        of women’s guttural cries against evil spirits

The fathers, the sons, who exchange looks as the arrowheads meant for meat

          to slide between the rib bones are exchanged for arrowheads

                of flint and courage and fear and sweat

     meant for an enemy

        with hands that tremble in secret..

The loud cries

    of warrior’s guttural warnings against the enemy

        of women’s guttural cries against evil spirits

            of women, wives and mothers, who see their care

                  to honor and bury the dead.

I remember the shaman, leaning on his eldest son’s arms,

Weeping, shaking, as the body of his grandson was laid before him and his old woman

The loud cries

    of his mother’s fierce curses against the enemy

         and it mattered not, then, that their mothers and wives cried too,

               we would have peace until the generation arose who knew the shaman

    only by name, the dances danced in his name, the songs sung in his name

but we didn’t know it then.

I remember the smell of war paint, of fear, of sweat, of blood

       shed to keep us safe in the lands we love, for the animals we hunt

           for the crops we plant and the babies who will come to be

for some.

  The excitement that made the hours of preparation

     As mystical as the stories told to us by the old men, now chilled.

The stories will have to wait for old men’s lips to tell.

5.

I remember the day I came face to face with a coyote

   The Trickster.

He seemed to come up ~ out of the ground ~ at will

      Panting in the heat, watching me

          As closely as I was watching him.

The boys had blindfolded me and lead me on a mystical ‘warrior’s hunt’ 

    Then run away

and none of the trees I saw along the riverbank

         Were even familiar, none bore the graceful names of friends

              Nor scuffs from moccasined feet

                                   Climbing to their slender heights.

No, not one, and I started to cry

There were no familiar trees along the river’s bank

        none bore the graceful names of friends

              Nor scuffs from moccasined feet

                                   Climbing to their slender heights.

And I imagined an enemy

      would leap out of hiding to seize a fat, plump child like me

           would leap out of hiding to seize a fat, plump rabbit like me

                 and I cried.

   Then he was there! Yellowed fangs exposed

        As if as afraid of me as I was of him

     and I blamed him for taking the shapes of the village boys and tricking me

      because I couldn’t blame the boys who’d blindfolded me

         then run away, leaving me on a strange riverbank,

                          confronted by a wary, fanged beast ~

     and seeing his hesitation

                          I threw the twig in my hand and shouted

                                  As loud as my voice was good for.

His pee in surprise smelled as strong as mine

    As mine ran down my leg-but he ran away with his and I washed in the stream

           since I was seen by no one familiar

since none of the trees I saw along the riverbank

         were even familiar, none bore the graceful names of friends

              nor scuffs from moccasined feet

   climbing to their slender heights- and I slipped in mud as I tried to climb out

         the slight embankment to its slender heights

           startling a grandfather trout who was too slow witted with heat to escape

                my quick hands,

                   so I found my own way home-going opposite of Coyote the Trickster

Petted and praised for bringing home such a fine fish, I was celebrated with my own song

That night by the summer campfire’s

         To the chagrin of the boys who’d been seen

   blindfolding me and leading me away on a ‘warrior’s quest’

then ran away.

Only later did I learn

         Antelope Dancing Drum had watched from a distance

              To keep me safe

                     But when I found my way home-we shared the fish with his mother

                     And smiles between ourselves.

6.

I remember the day the white buffalo calf

Came to the edge of the ravine overlooking our valley

       A harbinger of plenty food, plenty wampum, and tools from its bones

               warm clothing from its hide and glue from its hooves,

                  much gossip and good natured story telling to pass the long nights.

That day the warriors were away

       and only the very young and old remained, but we saw the white calf

           Standing, watching us, as we moved between the tipi’s of our summer camp

    And he shook his hump and stamped his legs ~ as if in challenge ~ though he

       and we were so young, so new to battle.

           And in answer seized up my father’s best lance and raised it in challenge

              As I stood outside the dried hide housing, made for easy transport,

                    So flimsy in comparison to our winter lodges,

          And as I stood, I sang a warrior’s song as it came from my heart,

Defying the mighty buffalo herd to sweep over the ridge

Protecting our summer camp

   as thick as mosquitoes

           as loud as unbroken thunder

                  as fiercesome as the breath of winter’s chill expirations

And I shook the warrior’s lance, above my head and twice my length, and I taunted

      The white buffalo calf though I was only a girl, and the song I sang

            Was mighty and sure and swift as the beast that gave him life

                  That gave him brute strength in youth

                       That gave him a coast of shaggy white,

       A harbinger of plenty food, plenty wampum, and tools from its bones

               warm clothing from its hide and glue from its hooves,

                  much gossip and good natured story telling to pass the long nights

                                       in that day that the warriors were away.

At my mother’s scream the women came in from the fields at a run

        and the child came early,

              and I remained to watch the white buffalo calf dip his head

            and rub his tender nose against his stick thin leg, then turn and walk away.

We would meet another day

for now I had to help my mother with her new son

            born early under the care and gaze of the sacred white buffalo

    The promise of food and safety for the whole tribe

            during the lifetime of that child

A harbinger of plenty food, plenty wampum, and tools from its bones

               warm clothing from its hide and glue from its hooves,

                  much gossip and good natured story telling to pass the long nights

                                  Someday ~

and everyone knew my brother would be a great hunter ~

                                             Someday ~

    At the cost of the white Buffalo’s life and hide ~

                                                                              Someday.

7.

I remember my mother’s face in repose

My father’s face was animated among ken, what he felt he wore in public

          or spoke in words with much vigor

                 except in Counsel when all men listened

                 and only the young and foolish spoke then, without invitation.

I remember my mother’s face in repose

The firelight moving, making shapes

       against the smooth, cool brown of her skin,

and I wondered what thoughts she pondered

and I wondered what thoughts she hid

            as the voices around us rose and fell like wolf song

    bursts of laughter, grunts of agreement, the waiting silences

       between the click of the gamboling dice

sounding like the strike of Buck’s antlers

                   while they were still on the prowling deer

click, click, clack

like the striking of antlers of competing Bucks while the does grazed near

like my mother’s face in repose,

        the new baby suckling from her breast,

          her attention turned to her mother’s words,

              a brief smile in allusion to people born and gone

                     in the long ago summers before I was born.

My father’s face animated, what he felt worn in public

        Except when he looked at his wife and me,

          Then his pride needed no words,

                Only the young and the foolish spoke then, without invitation.

But from time to time I would catch their gaze

 Unaccountably locked

       And I knew my mother was happy,

Her face serene in its repose.

 8.

I remember the night it rained so hard

   that the rocks rolled down the ravine, pushing

       one another as hard as they might!

Pushing over small trees that had gained a foothold

                On the slippery back, leaving trains in the mud

    to show their passage,

       to show the passage thereafter of paw and hoof where their ruin carried them,

and how “Ho” the ill-temped Brown Bear, enraged, attacked one of the tipi’s

thinking it a giant foe, a greater bear, a larger sow about to attack her cubs,

           Angry at her ruined bed and ready for a fight

              the smell of blood enraging a small mind

                  and small eyes with no wisdom

      except to root for grubs and catch fish too slow witted to escape the clumsy

           swipe of a massive paw.

I remember the night being torn apart by screams

   As an unwitting man was torn apart by the deliberate swipes of great clumsy paws

          too massive to escape in the dark

as rocks rolled down the ravine, pushing one another as hard as they might

       as humans stooped to pick them up and hurl them at ‘Ho” the dim witted bear

as hunters and women alike raced to the cleft

                                                       of water and mud, blood and screams,

      the dying man, his leg laid bare to the bone,

        the dying bear, its body sticking with arrows like quills on a porcupine

    warriors pushing as hard as they might

          the bear pushing over small trees that had gained a foothold in the slippery mud

until the great beast was silent on the sloping edge of the riverbank

                   and rose no more.

             it’s fur clumped together by blood and rain indiscriminately.

The dead man’s family ate the best part of the bear

     In celebration of a good life avenged,

        a good father and husband lost

 but the rains continued, loosing more rocks, and we had to move the camp

           with only a pile of stones and bleaching Ursus’ bones to mark the place

                  where the rain and the bear ended,

                 adjacent to sorrow’s song.

9.

I remember the cool of mornings when my grandmother would rise

        To the sounds of the shaman

          summoning the sun to his rightful place on the shadowed horizon

              and she’s smile, though I don’t remember the words

                       if any words were said, the form of my mother rising

       the sparks in the fire pit outside the skin walls where the breath of life flowed,

where life flowed with breath, and laughter, and common duties

        alike to all men, young and old, warrior or sage alike

            as the spirit world watched silently in approval and life flowed on.

I remember the morning she didn’t rise first

    but shuffled slowly, her brow knit with pain, the pain of my mother’s fear

        more than her own I believe,

             and I was appointed to stay near rather than weed in the garden or chase lizards

         or even gather firewood or watch the baby, and I was bored,

                I felt put upon by my elders while other children got to run and play,

     Pretending to be the doe or the buck, the attacker or the chased, in wild-eyed joy, I sat

  and the longer I sat, the deeper my spirit sank, until I felt alone in the world,

        the most misused and misunderstood thing in all of Creation,

            Ignored by my mother busy with other tasks,

             Ignore by my mother the earth as the clouds changed and the wild folk beckoned

But I had to sit by a silent old woman with worn teeth, annoyed by a child’s chatter.

   Oh! To be so young again, but never so ignorant again.

        When the pain passed my grandmother set my body free to chase harmless lizards

              As though they were the masters of the world,

                      To track the badger in his hunt, the doe and her fawn,

                            To witness, to be, the miracle of life around me, and she said only,

“   Once I was young, now I am old.

        It is time to put away the past and join those I love,

                 my father and mother, my husband Swimming Badger, my fine sons who died

                           as honorable men, mourned by many women and men who loved them

                    for the goodness of their spirit and the depth of their heart toward others,

                          all those ones who once loved me,

       But I go, at peace, because I see the future

         I see the future in you, Granddaughter, I see the future in you Bright Aspen Dove,

             who once lay in my arms pink and bruised from birth, helpless,

                 who shares the gift of strong young limbs with one who has no strength left,

                     in you I see the future, in your mother, in her son,

              and the sons you will bear who will only know my name,

                               and I am at peace.  “

And I fled her, because I saw myself old, but she understood.

I think now, she understood.

10.

I remember the cadence of the hide drums, the slow, heartbeat rhythm of the drums

 The smell of the sacred tobacco as each warrior in turn took the pipe, which allowed

            him to speak, while men listened, and weighed his words.

               And boys pressed in the rear of the sacred circle pressed near,

       hanging on every word of the men they would one day be.

Though Antelope Dancing Drum had risked his life

     To save my foolish younger brother when he lost the paddle

            And the canoe was being swept downriver

      downriver toward the camp of our enemies,

            and he risked his life to save the promised child, the promised hunter,

                but wasn’t allowed to join with the ranks of men,

          though men shook their heads and said it was a brave thing he did

          though men shook their heads and said it was as foolish a thing he did

             as my witless younger brother did in stealing an enemy’s canoe

                   too large for one boy to paddle,

                      foolishness both, though they were proud of him

           and I said how unfair it was to deny him a right to sit in the man’s circle

             given his bravery in defense of another,

                 in defense of those yet unborn who will depend on my brother

         when he has raised up to take the promised mantle of the white buffalo calf,

      when he has counted coup against a worthy enemy

             and not merely stolen a canoe carelessly left unguarded,

                       but he rebuked me to tears, saying, ‘What does a girl know?’

  and he walked away as the drums throbbed to the sobs of my broken heart

              for what he left unsaid, hurt worse than what he did.

 Another year passed before the cadence of the hide drums was repeated,

       the slow, heartbeat rhythm of the drums

 The smell of the sacred tobacco as each warrior in turn took the pipe,

which allowed him to speak, while men listened, and weighed his words.

               And boys pressed in the rear of the sacred circle pressed near,

       hanging on every word of the men they would one day be,

and my brother stood as tall as his shoulder, and Antelope Dancing Drum stood apart

      taller than the others, sadder than the others at the death of his mother,

            but still, despite his bravery defending our camp against two boys of

   another tribe, out to learn manhood at the cost of their enemy’s young women,

      he wasn’t allowed to join the sacred circle, nor to speak, for he couldn’t ‘count coup’

              against an enemy younger and more foolish than himself. .

 and I said how unfair it was to deny him a right to sit in the man’s circle

             given his bravery in defense of another,

                 in defense of those yet unborn who will depend on my brother

         when he has raised up to take the promised mantle of the white buffalo calf,

      when he has counted coup against a worthy enemy

 and not merely chased away two boys who shamed their own clan as much as ours,

                       but he rebuked me to tears, saying, ‘What does a girl know?’

  and he walked away as the drums throbbed to the sobs of my broken heart

              for what he left unsaid, hurt worse than what he did.

  “What does a girl know?”  I sobbed, but the drums left that unspoken.

         And so did he.

11.

I remember best the autumn of the high mountains

    When the coming cold winds

          and shivering leaves brought     

the Bands together in yearly celebration, when families rejoined to see the changes     

  to hunt, to gambol, to laugh, to see the new babies

        the new absence of old faces and fondly remembered forms,

 to court, to win, to wed.

I remember the first such sacred convocation

        After I’d endured the rite of passage from girl to woman, I crossed the threshold

           Part in fear, part in joy, lips parted in expectation

But Antelope Dancing Drum’s mother acted as if she didn’t see

   I even existed!

         But I was an honorable maiden, a pure girl, I could wait,

            and bit my lip in frustration,

But Antelope Dancing Drum’s mother acted as if she didn’t see

   I even existed!

       In her mind there was no need for hurry, he was too young to marry,

            a warrior’s right, won in battle, and she needed him to provide for her

                  in his later father’s absence, who rode to war

                          but returned face down across his blooded horse, hen her son was but ten.

Every gift my mother offered was accepted,

       but as if it was her due, since she had a man, and she had none,

          and any reference to a fish, long since eaten, fell on deaf ears

     and any reference to fish, or fowl, or rabbit shared in the lean months shrugged off…

awakening no gleam of understanding, no nod of comprehension,

   as between two old and trusted friends

              who have no need for mere words to understand

But Antelope Dancing Drum’s mother acted as if she didn’t see

   I even existed!

       In her mind there was no need for hurry, he was too young to marry,

            a warrior’s right, won in battle, and she needed him to provide for her

  in his later father’s absence, who rode to war and came home

       only to be mourned and buried.

         But I was an honorable maiden, a pure girl, I could wait,

            and bit my lip in frustration,

But Antelope Dancing Drum’s mother acted as if she didn’t see

   I even existed!

         but every gift my mother offered was accepted,

      as if it was her due, since she had a man, and she had none,

      as the mother of such an eligible son,

though he had as yet to count coup against an enemy.