Issue #25, February, 2002 : -- 1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 11 -12
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Barbara Robidoux

Grandma's Drum Sestina The drum still talks resting on the cabin wall: "I'm old but not forgotten my skin is thin now,tight from the heat of the stove. My eight-sided frame is discolored from age the cedar has lost its red glow but with the right beater I will still sing" The heat of the fire compels her to sing shadows flicker on the cabin wall. Usdi Yona, pine and cedar embers glow echoes of my name not forgotten. Little Bear Woman has come of age Clan gathered to meet her around the black iron stove. Pots of deer stew and hulled corn simmer on the stove. Remembered by my eyes and the songs I will sing coyotes howl, we are seated by clan and by age on the blanketed floor our backs to the wall. A thousand years and more of songs and stories never forgotten etched in our brains, our faces glow. Now when aspen turn yellow and begin to glow I light a fire in the kitchen stove recalling songs not forgotten. The autumn wind whispers, provokes me to sing as cottonwood leaves float against adobe walls and chilis hung to dry redden with age. My children and I live in another age the fires in our stoves continue to glow photos of clan cousins hang on the walls and deer meat and hulled corn still cook on the stove. In the quiet of winter there are songs we sing names and songs encoded in our genes,never forgotten. In the Moon of Blinding Snows forgotten days of summer give no solace to the age old memories of a time we could not sing our precious songs. Dark moon, no glow cave fires gave light, there were no stoves only homes carved into mountain walls Drums sing around stoves today and rest on the walls Memories preserved in moon glow of an age not forgotten. Tsalagi, Cherokee, Real People we call ourselves.

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Issue #25, February, 2002 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.