by Jim Harrison

Rumi advised me to keep my spirit
up in the branches of a tree and not peek
out too far, so I keep mine in the very tall
willows along the irrigation ditch out back,
a safe place to remain unspoiled by the filthy
culture of greed and murder of the spirit.
People forget their spirits easily suffocate
so they must keep them far up in tree
branches where they can be summoned any moment.
It’s better if you’re outside as it’s hard for spirits
to get into houses or buildings or airplanes.
In New York City I used to reach my spirit in front
of the gorilla cage in the children’s zoo in Central Park.
It wouldn’t come in the Carlyle Hotel which
was too expensive for its taste.  In Chicago
it won’t come in the Drake though I can see it
out the window hovering over the surface
of Lake Michigan.  The spirit above anything
else is attracted to humility.  If I slept
in the streets it would be under the cardboard with me.

by Diane Wald

Not sure if the buck in the rose garden is a sign
or a just buck in the rose garden.  He raises

his velvet antlers as if he were ready
to lift and stir those petals into ambrosia.

When I heard about your dying of course I cried.
I sat on your lap once; it was quite chaste,

a nightride in a truck with a handful of others,
a full moon, bourbon, yes maybe another buck —

and we all rode out to the black ocean,
in spite of all that had been said about you,

with silver stars in our pockets, water on one side,
fire on the other.  The sand on our feet like melted ice

in front of the blazing woods.

by Joseph BruChac

The ghosts of the Carlisle Indian School
are drinking again tonight down by the church.

You can hear them chanting
the same school fight song
that prodded proud Pop Warner’s warriors
to victories over Harvard and Army.

Minnewa kah, Minnewa kah
Minnewa kah wah weh!

Those boarding school ghosts
are now weaving their way
along the muddy Frogtown Road.

So long dead, they believe they survived
all of the abuses they absorbed,
the brutal beatings meted out
whenever any child forgot and spoke
a single word in a Native tongue.

Those wraiths believe that they’re still young.
They think they’ve stolen the big bass drum
from the marching band shed and soon the sounds
of war songs older than Protestant hymns
will echo off shocked Pennsylvania hills.

In the morning, though, sober as the grave,
they will wake once more in memory’s gutter,
the drum head of their dreams kicked in,
insubstantial lips as dry as coal dust,
no more than white visions vanishing into mist.