Deep Dish poem-a-month

Hands

Old man,
I stood over you,
and when I reached
to touch your
gray folded hands,

I remembered,
suddenly, a fair summer day
beside big water,
when you laughed
and lifted me
higher than the trees,

and I felt
like a big boy,
like a big boy,
in your hands
I felt
like a good boy,
and you said,
        hey Chee-pwa,
        do you see any angels up there, do you see any angels?

Old man,
I leaned over you
in your box,
touched my hands
into your
gray wave of hair,
whispered,
        may the Grandfathers give you feathers,
        all is forgiven
        down here.

Mark Turcotte

The Feathered Heart, copyright Michigan State University Press, 1995, used with permission of the poet.

Brother River Dreams

In ripples,
becoming waves,
unyielding he unchanging he
flows down,

from the woodlands
and the marshes
of northwest Ontario,
brother river dreams
and knifes his hungry way
into the fat and fleshy
heart of the places
where America is sleeping.

Brother river dreams,
glides the barren highway,
city to city,
and with his silvery, untamed teeth he
rips into the infested skins
of the factories and the machine-shops,
with his untamed teeth
into the blistered skins
of the jails and the bars,
with his untamed teeth
into the rotting skins
of the school yards,
of the places
where America is sleeping.

Brother river dreams,
washes down
the canyons of Chicago,
splashes through the alleys
with the laughter of his rice-gathering People,
floods the unforgiven streets
with the blood and cries of Anishinaabeg ghosts,
all drowning drowning
the places
where America is sleeping.

Brother river dreams,
he speaks the fire within our veins,
he dreams, he walks, so we remain,
and his blood never forgets your shame,

So sleep on,
America,
we wake
and we are rising,
while our brother river dreams.

Mark Turcotte
The Feathered Heart, copyright Michigan State University Press, 1995, used with permission.