"WHEREAS"

 “WHEREAS”

During Native American Heritage Month, I am sharing some of the work of Layli Long Soldier in response to an apology issued by the US government in 2009, an apology not only weak in content but almost secretive in publicity.  Long Soldier wrote a book of poetry/prose called “Whereas” in response.  I am repeating my other introduction to her from my blog of October 9.

{The following are short excerpts from a much longer work of poetry and prose by Layli Long Soldier from her book “Whereas,” drawing on the official US government language of the Resolution and Apology.  She is a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Native Artist Fellowship, and a Whiting Award.  She lives in Santa Fe. She is a member of Oglala Lakota. I was introduced to her work by one of her poems in worship at North Decatur Presbyterian Church.  As I write this, Israel and Hamas are at war, and I am thinking of the many parallels of the white treatment of Native Americans and the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people.}

WHEREAS I shy. Away from the cliché my friend an artist”emotes” at my table. I shy. Away too I worry and second-guess.  Cliché’s what’s list its original effect and power

Through overuse over-reliance I wash the dishes.  I smell the citrus scented.  In ordinary tasks I can’t help the thoughts that lead me elsewhere.  We chat while I rinse our cups then I bubble my hands into a pigeonhole.  I remember the summer I armed myself with yellow rubber gloves and a bucket of bleach to scrub an abandoned pigeon nest on our porch.  My eyes stung raw with my fear of mites. Crawling in molten feathers layers of droppings hardened cakes of white.  Whereas a pigeonhole is aka a white hole the dictionary says. A white hole’s known as the white     space          between    words   set     too     far     apart     in    letterpress

printing       a term synonymous with pigeonhole we don’t want it.  Ever to say we 

suffer the assignment of a stagnant place in the system my friend avoids this as an artist.  She convinces me.  I definitely don’t want it either the stigma of a place I shy.

Away from admitting to her what’s in my work:  this location.  Where I must be firmly positioned to receive an apology the spot from which to answer.  Standing here I regard an index finger popping up pointing out a reminder:

Whereas in the infancy of the United States,

The founders of the Republic expressed their de-

sire for a just relationship with the Indian tribes,

as evidenced by the Northwest Ordinance en-

acted by Congress in 1787, which begins with 

the phrase, “The utmost good faith must always

be observed towards the Indians”;

Because when unconvinced           from this pigeonhole and no other            I can

  bleach and scrub           forehead sweat                 rubber arms        physical effort

mental force     art and shape        muscle my back    languageness     a list of moves 

            to loosen the hold         yes I can            shake my head wag      my finger too

     at that good faith       white cake             in a white           hole

                        that stained            refusal to come                     clean.