columbus endures
as an old lady
in the park
she wears robes
and smells
woolly
of moth balls
and gum
columbus endures
as an old lady
she trudges
in a heavy
winter coat
and waits
on a park bench
for the snow
columbus endures
as an old lady
she pulls
a threadbare
blanket
over her mouth
and shouts
landfall ahead
on the green
columbus endures
as an old lady
she dreams
by day
of an opera
orchestra
mounted
out of time
on appaloosas
columbus endures
as an old lady
she draws
bathwater
for the return
by irony
and chance
to the old world

east

the whole moon

burns behind jamestown

seven wings of geese

light the thin ice

west

the asian sun

bloody on the interstate

spring flowers

break on the gray prairie

exit

fingerprints

on the rearview mirror

feral shadows

transposed near fargo

feathery moths
flutter on the screen
unbearable
sounds of summer
oblivious tonight
that my reading light
is not my day
stout bodies
cut and bounce
near a crack
in the screen
and beat inside
a paper shade
sacraments
of a monumental
natural presence
we are drawn
forever
by the moths
to other lights
neighbors
down the road

Gerald Vizenor, Anishinaabe, is Distinguished Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and the author of more than twenty books on native histories, critical studies, literature, and poetry including The People Named the Chippewa, and Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance. He received the American Book Award for his novel Griever: An American Monkey King in China. His most recent books are Fugitive Poses: Native American Scenes of Absence and Presence, Wordarrows: Native States of Literary Sovereignty; two novels, Chancers, and Hiroshima Bugi, a narrative poem, Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point, and Almost Ashore, selected poems.

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