Chrystos is a Native American lesbian poet. I went to one of her readings shortly after I moved to Vancouver. I’d never heard of her before, and was deeply moved by her work. It speaks of the harsh realities of life, poverty and racism and sexism and love and activism and spirituality, and how all these things interact. At the time I wanted so much to write like she did, fierce and unapologetic and flowing straight from the heart. The following is from her first collection of poetry, Not Vanishing.
Wings Of A Wild Goose
A hen, one who could have brought more geese, a female, a wild one
dead Shot by an excited ignorant young blond boy, his first
His mother threw the wings in the garbage I rinsed them
brought them home, hung them spread wide on my studio wall
A reminder of so much, saving what I can’t bear to be wasted
Wings
I dream of wings which carry me far above human bitterness
human walls A goose who will have no more tiny pale fluttering
goslings to bring alive to shelter to feed to watch fly
off on new wings different winds
He has a lawn this boy A pretty face which was recently paid
thousands of dollars to be in a television commercial I clean
their house every Wednesday morning
2 dogs which no one brushes flying hair everywhere
A black rabbit who is almost always out of
water usually in a filthy cage I’ve cleaned the cage
out of sympathy a few times although it is not part of what
are called my duties I check the water as soon as I arrive
This rabbit & those dogs are the boy’s pets He is very lazy
He watches television constantly leaving the sofa in the den
littered with food wrappers, soda cans, empty cereal bowls
If I’m still there when he comes home, he is rude to me If he
has his friends with him, he makes fun of me behind my back
I muse on how he will always think of the woods
as an exciting place to kill This family of three lives
on a five acre farm They raise no crops not even their own
vegetables or animals for slaughter His father is a neurosurgeon
who longs to be a poet His mother frantically searches
for christian enlightenment I’m sad for her though I don’t like
her because I know she won’t find any The boy does nothing
around the house to help without being paid I’m 38 & still
haven’t saved the amount of money he has in a passbook found
in the pillows of the couch under gum wrappers That dead goose
This boy will probably never understand that it is not right
to take without giving He doesn’t know how to give His mother
who cleaned & cooked the goose says she doesn’t really like
to do it but can’t understand why she should feel any different
about the goose than a chicken or hamburger from the supermarket
I bite my tongue & nod I could explain to her that meat raised
for slaughter is very different than meat taken from the woods
where so few wild beings survive That her ancestors are
responsible for the emptiness of this land That lawns feed no
one that fallow land lined with fences is sinful That hungry
people need the food they could be growing That spirituality
is not separate from food or wildness or respect or giving
But she already doesn’t like me because she suspects me
of reading her husband’s poetry books when no one is around
& she’s right I do I need the 32 dollars a week tolerating
them provides me I wait for the wings on my wall to speak to me
guide my hungers teach me winds I can’t reach I keep
these wings because walls are so hard wildness so rare because
ignorance must be remembered because I am female because I fly
only in my dreams because I too
will have no young to let go