Accord of Patience
The mourn of the native flute soars
Through old and new, flat and tall,
As a whisper, dancing and crawling as its
Story begs, pleads, hear me pale, dark mass,
You that polluted our Mother and twisted
Our ways useless have borne the shame.
Tradition still learned by those who hear,
Of a proud, respectful and brave people
That lived in harmony with Mother,
Father and The Wise One Above.
Onward pushed by the Oppressor, our ways
stripped by those who challenge the Spirit
and forced to mimic the pale ways. Our lodge
fires crushed, unadorned clothing without purpose or
the caress of a creative hand, our tongue silenced,
the ceremonial prayers choked as
rope
fashioned in a noose, swinging.
Look, pale dark mass, what you
have done
With your plunder. While you breed and
Spread your sickness, we feed our
fires and
Tend our young, unpolluted to your
rot.
And wait, as Mother slowly
restores us as Her keeper.
This is a deeply emotion based piece. The passion with which it was written shows vividly in the word choice in the piece. “The mourn of the native flute” is a great use of the unexpected, since flutes are usually associated with uplifting and jolly music. The overall tone and feelings of the poem reminds me of the stories my friend who is Native American shared with me. One note of improvement is adding more specificity to the abstractions in the piece. Perhaps there a specific dance that you could use to relate to the way the flute’s sound soars.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I'm going to be a little more critical. Remember our mantra: go in fear of abstraction. Now, look at the piece again, and count all of the abstractions. Here's just in the title and first stanza alone:
ReplyDeleteAccord, patience, mourn, whisper, story begs, pleads, mass, ways, shame.
Now try and go back into the piece and substitute concrete images for each of those.
The other challenge here is to avoid the "message first" mentality. You're translating your ideas into language, rather than what we're trying to do in class each day: let language itself conjure meaning and ideas.
Let go, for a little while. "Intention impedes invention." That's what William Stafford, a fine poet, said. Good advice.