American Odyssey
I watch you go quiet in mid-chatter.
You look up and inward,
your eyes deep-set and native,
I glimpse you,
not as that Irish girl brought up in the projects
but as an American legend, a promise
so very few have discovered or kept.
Only here does the land
grow mystics that can bake bread
and also hammer rivets.
The old wild ones who have learned to read,
taught by the earth and sky.
You belong to the outcast and tribe-less,
the indigenous who planted their own
deep seeds.
Those who innately knew
how to take a wild journey
barefoot or shod,
long before the conquistadores
drove their pigs before them
chopping up this continent
into cuts of meat for their God to eat.
A buzzard flaps slowly away,
suddenly you smile.
''I'll make dumplings tonight" you say,
"just like my Polish grandma used to make em."
We calmly carry on
walking into the blue distance,
Behind us,
Lewis and Clark struggle to keep up.
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