SPARKLING COMMUNITY HUB

During Covid the Co-op became

the only place many would

go besides home or work.

I have no doubt that its

warm, inviting social medicine

saved many lives, many souls. 

The Co-op was confidante,

easygoing carnival, neighborly

kitchen, safe zone, sparkling

community hub. The world

titled, wept, but we remained

a solid center. All of us who

worked there during this period

knew that this was the case-

we were staffing/tending a multi-

faceted place that was necessary,

that was full of beautiful heart. 

We all stayed steady together

and the Co-op fed all who

came on many different levels. 

EVERY INDIAN KNOWS THIS SITUATION

Three folks in the coffee shop:

two of them well-meaning old white

folks having a big conversation 

about all-things-Indian. 

Every Indian knows this situation. 

We all react, respond, feel 

differently.

I feel the grief of everything they’re

talking about but don’t feel motivated

to get up and join them. 

Also: do they see me?

Do they see the real Indian 

just feet away from them?

I decide to keep to myself. 

I speak and advocate for my people

all the time-

I think today I’ll just choose

my ancestors, my privacy, 

my complicated silence. 

NORMAN RED STAR

Norman worked on a clay pot

in his humble basement studio, 

painting a beautiful moonlit

deer on it.

He was in his fifties and I 

was barely twenty-two.

My face was covered in acne,

his face was heavily pock-marked

from top to bottom.

My young self encountered

his older self as support beam,

tutor, older brother, mapmaker

of solid ground, wisdom book,

family medicine bringing my

trembling identity out of the depths,

Fools Crow’s grandson, song teacher, 

pipe maker, Lakota river

washing over all my lost, 

disassembled stones. 

We hung out, drove long distances

to ceremony together, clicked

as quiet natural born artists,

were sincere in our quests

to walk the Red Road.

He played Buddy Red Bow

on his old boom-box and shared

spiritual things in the course

of our conversation and catching up;

and I absorbed it all like

light and rainwater and

the scent of old times. 

“Sam Moves Camp told us all, 

‘When you pray there’s a light

in your heart that grows.

My spirits look at that light

and read it, work with it.

The harder you pray,

the bigger it becomes.’”

Buddy Red Bow sang about 

an unforgettable Indian woman.

Norman used a small brush 

on that gray-brown deer. 

Sam Moves Camp and his spirits

talked to my listening heart.

And I treasured it all.