by Linda
Rodriguez
(This
post was published in an earlier version on my personal blog.)
Like my ancestors before me, I love rivers. The peace of
running water always calms me, watching it ripple past slowly, hearing the
murmur of the water over rocks and branches and the swish of it against the
banks, spying the many lives that live along the river--fish, turtles, snakes,
muskrats, beavers, hawks, and eagles. For
millennia, my people have always chosen to settle near rivers.
When I was growing up, I was taught
to go to water when troubled or ill. Running water is strong medicine, good
medicine. We pray next to it, and then use it to wash away whatever is
troubling our hearts, minds, or bodies. Sometimes a creek or brook will work
for me, but if I'm truly heartsick, I seek out a river.
This poem is an exploration of this
practice of going to water when troubled. In the worst kind of pain and grief,
sometimes only a river can provide any release. For a healing ceremony, one
needs to build a fire, say the right prayers, make an offering, but sometimes
in the worst straits, it can be simply you and the river.
I
GIVE YOU TO RIVER
Turning
to the water for release
from
my troubles, from you,
I
write your name in my palm with my finger,
then
brush off the invisible letters
into
the river currents passing at my feet.
I
ask River to carry them out of my heart and mind,
carry
them away from my life, remove all that darkness
that
is you infesting my mind against my will,
replaying
memories that were nothing
but
playacting on your part,
though
my heart tries to find excuses,
for
all the deliberate pain.
I
have to face it finally—there are none.
Hard
to believe, but even harder to find
I
still long for you.
This
stubborn heart won’t give up.
So
I barricade it, keep it safe from its stupid fidelity,
while
I wait for River to carry out magic,
carry
your name and games far from me,
set
me free finally with the power of moving water,
my
own inborn element,
which
carves memories of trauma from the earth itself
and
leaves wondrous scars.
Published in Dark Sister
(Mammoth Publishing, 2018)
Linda
Rodriguez has written or edited 13 books. Her novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, Every
Last Secret—and books of poetry—Skin
Hunger, Heart's Migration, Dark Sister: Poems—have received
critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic
Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book
of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe
Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. She also published Plotting the Character-Driven Novel and
other nonfiction books, as well as editing Unpapered:
Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging, Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertorriqueña
Poets Look at Their American Lives, The
World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, and other
anthologies.
Rodriguez is past chair of the
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes/Sisters in Crime,
founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and
belongs to International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the
Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and
Kansas City Cherokee Community. Learn more about her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.
