In the '70s, too, Diane Rothenberg and I and our son,
Matthew, went to live on this Allegany Seneca reservation
in western New York state, where she
did important ethno-historical work,
and I did less important translations
with Seneca singers, like Richard Johnny John,
of traditional Seneca poetry.
And a book called Seneca Journal.
An old dreamer religion there, and this poem calls attention
to that at a point when a dear poet friend, David Antin,
made the claim that he never dreamed.
That changed later.
This is addressed to David Antin at the time
when he wasn't dreaming.
And the Senecas had a long tradition of dreams,
and there's a lot of Seneca religion,
mythology, whatever you want, in this.
So Seneca Journal seven, "The Dreamers."
For David Antin.
It actually begins-- it begins with one of those contests
that the poets get into.
Somebody says, we want to do a series of poems
based on picture postcards.
So I had a picture postcard of an Indian couple sitting
at their kitchen table.
And they're a couple, so, you know, it's full of magic.
"That couple sitting in splendor of old houses--
Albert Jones and his wife Geneva,
were old before my time.
He was the last of the Seneca diviners.
Died 1968, the year we first stayed in Salamanca,
with the power to know dreams.
'Their single divinity,' wrote Fremin--
Society of Jesus, 1650.
As we say, divine, the deva in us, like a devil or a divus,
deus.
When these old woods were rich with god's people called
powers, they would appear in words.
Our language hides them.
Even now, the action of the poem brings them to light.
Dear David, not in the business man's imagination,
but asking 'who is Beaver?'
Forces them out of the one mind in mything, mouthing
the grains of language.
As David, that sounds like 'deva,' means 'beloved.'
Thus, every Indian once had a name.
'Devils,' the Jesuits said, or 'dreams,' but were barred from
the dying man's room, who sat dreaming, singing,
surrounded by bells, knives, needles, scissors, blankets,
caps, coats, wampum belts, beads, awls,
the thousand objects of his dreams,
was careful not to kill a desire in sleep.
He knew he wanted to eat dog's flesh or man's,
that his father's hatchet had vanished.
Something forever secret waited in him.
The 13th virgin in the love feast always out of reach.
Therefore, they fed him like babe or woman.
The dark diviner at his side wept still over riddles, beads,
and pumpkins, and the man screamed,
rolling in the fire, cut his own fingers off with seashells.
Once aimed a blow at some poor girl's head but stopped,
said, 'I am satisfied.
My dream requires nothing further.'
Like the vision-- as a boy, he saw an old man of rare beauty
who held out bear meat in right hand, human in left,
ate of the bear and was a hunter.
Came back, ordered gifts, 10 dogs, 10 porcelain
beads from each cabin, a collar, belt of wampum,
10 rows wide, four measures of sunflower seeds,
and sat 10 hours by scorching flame, singing his death song.
So the Jesuits wrote, 'all their cabins they have filled with
dreams.'
Was it the moon she saw, like the moon in Poland,
that old mother, once lighted up our minds that the Iroquois
woman dreamed of, had walked out from her cabin, baby
daughter in her arms?
'Old moon's dropped down to Earth,' she says.
'Has become a woman like myself, but holds another babe,
as if I walked into a mirror.'
And the moon stands blood red.
Says, 'I am thy dominant seigneur, fat with my moon
glow.
Grant thee the power to name gifts.
Maybe tobacco, flashy beads, robe of red squirrel fur,
to thee be given.
See they proclaim dream feasts in my name.
So much I love thee, I would thee be like me.
Like fire-- wholly, to live in color of my fire.'
Now is herself.
Red lady dresses all up in red.
Her feathers, cap, belt, shoes-- all red.
She's even smearing her body.
Red encircles each protuberance.
Red of her labia--
so fine is her brain turned upside down.
Now she will walk barefoot through 200 fires,
squawk her old woman song, groan red with love.
Stretches her pink tongue to touch her last desire.
Turned upside down.
This is the ceremony at last.
There is nothing before it greater
than the woman at the rim of her own dream.
Sees a new world below, the air expands,
blows against her legs.
Its fingers open the dull labia.
Suddenly aglow and burning red with a new promise.
The world-child takes root in her, will be a daughter.
She be the grandmother to what is good and bad.
Walks now in the new world below her head,
like crossing the back of an old turtle on your hands
in a country where everyone wears feathers.
Where skins like glass opens a window in her breast,
say from which an Indian, tired from his show, stares out,
shines at you.
A gold tooth and a terrible top hat with flags."