“Volcanic Drift” and Two Poems
Volcanic Drift
by Liam Wilson
Swinomish*
by Terry Dawson
hollow like the heavy masks I carve
the burnt out trailer of the Loomis boys
sits like a totem of desperation
on the edge of the reservation
always drunk in their rusting pickup
parked somewhere different every day
they betray our heritage and now their mother
has no place to live shit happens: their mantra
so I gouge into this fragrant cedar and try
to dig us all out of our long stupor
on this spit of land set apart like a wound
as the brackish waters burn against us
the sea has carved out this slough in the
corner of the Northwest as an invitation
to receive our brother salmon along with
the abundant blackberries
I hear the beating drum that marches
us all out into the Pacific to feel again grace
as we pull in the nets of silver flanks
as we withdraw our hands from the thorn bushes
they are rope-burned and pregnant with juicy drupelets
sometimes pierced to remind us of the cost
our young men have forgotten this they have
forgotten who they are and so I carve these reminders:
wolf, raven, whale, eagle, bear
these are our people too; when then I come back
into this world sheme **, I will know how to fill
the hollowness within me
* one of the Coast Salish tribes
** Coast Salish for white settler, literally "the color of a drowned person"
en el craneo abierto de la catedral
by Terry Dawson
in the open skull of the cathedral
I now spend my days — this building
where once sat the mind of la communidad
the earthquakes changed all that:
the first one shook these walls apart
the second, la revolucion, hollowed out
the power of the church in Nicaragua —
occurring seven years apart, both
rocking the heart of Managua, mi ciudad
with no jobs and little food, it’s a place to
go; I’m not alone; otras hombres like me
climb through the skeletal steel
high above the chancel altar, we can see
through the crumbled wall to the baptistery
where the concrete fount lay prone
like a fallen soldier but none of us have
joined the war; we hide in this place that once
gave us comfort; we are neither
Sandinista or Contra we are all bored
and afraid as we join again the rubble
en el craneo abierto de la catedral
though I'll die before la lucha, the struggle,
resolves like so many other young men
in this young pais, I remain
in the gaze of an American, who, startled by the
rumble above, stared up now and then he
returns me to the skull, where my eyes
fall upon his like a spectral question