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We watched from the house as the river grew, helpless and terrible in its unfamiliar body. Wrestling everything into it, the water wrapped around trees until their life-hold was broken. They went down, one by one, and the river dragged off their covering. Nests of the herons, roots washed to bones, snags of soaked bark on the shoreline: a whole forest pulled through the teeth of the spillway. Trees surfacing singly, where the river poured off into arteries for fields below the reservation. When at last it was over, the long removal, they had all become the same dry wood. We walked among them, the branches whitening in the raw sun. Above us drifted herons, alone, hoarse-voiced, broken, settling their beaks among the hollows. Grandpa said,These are the ghosts of the tree people moving among us, unable to take their rest.

The Barbados Advocate , Thursday, January 19, 1995, page 4 MILDRED COLLYMORE told the No. 3 Supreme Court yesterday that when she recovered from an attack with a stone she found herself "washed-way" in blood. Collymore said also that accused Philamena Hinds came back to move the rock but she would not let her. The complainant said that on the day of the incident she left her home and went over to her daughter's on the other side of the road to cut the grass from around the place. When she got to the spot she said dirt was on the grass and she took the hoe and raked it away. While she was doing this, the witness said, Hinds' son, Gline , came and spoke to her and then went back up the road. She said Hinds came next and spoke to her but she did not hear what she said. The witness added that she was holding down, and on looking up she was struck suddenly with a big rock in her right forehead. "I tumble down and when I come to myself I was wash-way in blood." she testified... Collymore told the court [that] after she found out she was bleeding she went to a neighbour's home and called the police. She was later taken to   the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and detained for three days, she said Asked by prosecutor Ms Donna Babb if she had quarrelled with   Collymore before the incident she replied no. The witness also told the prosecutor that  she did not interfere with the accused. Babb asked her if she had attacked the accused with a hoe but she said she was not given a chance to do so. Cross-examine When defence lawyer Dr Waldo Waldron Ramsey's turn came to cross-examine Collymore, he asked her how long she knew the accused and she said it was since childhood. She also said she and Hinds once worked together in they understand each other. Waldron-Ramsay suggested to the witness that on the day of the incident, marl was on the accused woman's property and she was pulling it down to make a road for her daughter and son-in-law. She denied the suggestion. He further told Hinds that she told the accused that she cold not stop her from pulling down the marl, and this she denied. Waldron-Ramsay put it to the witness that when she refused to stop moving the marl the accused left her and went back home, but Hinds said this was not < true. Continuing his cross-examination, Waldron-Ramsay suggested to Hinds that Collymore came to her a second time and told her to stop racking away her dirt but the witness [the accused!] again denied this ever took place. The witness further denied the suggestion that this second time she became more vicious and told the accused [Hinds] that if she did not move her " X X X X she would lick her to X X X X down." Waldron-Ramsay also suggested to Collymore that she had the hoe in the air ready to lick down Hinds, but she denied this. DATE TREE HILL CASE The crown will call its third witness this morning in the trial of 48-year-old Philamena Hinds, before Mr Justice Frederick Waterman in No. 3 Supreme Court. Hinds, a machine operator, of Date Tree Hill, St Peter, is charged with causing grievous bodily harm to 65-year-old Mildred Collymore, of Date Tree Hill, on December 13, 1993, with intent to maim, disfigure or disable her... Hinds, who pleaded not guilty... is represented by attorney-at-law Dr. Waldo Waldron Ramsay while the Crown's case is being put by Acting Crown Counsel Donna Babb. Collymore's 45-year-old-daughter, Linda, is acting as her interpreter, because the witness has a hearing problem.

I My life is the gardener of my body. The brain—a hothouse closed tight with its flowers and plants, alien and odd in their sensitivity, their terror of becoming extinct. The face—a formal French garden of symmetrical contours and circular paths of marble with statues and places to rest, places to touch and smell, to look out from, to lose yourself in a green maze, and Keep Off and Don’t Pick the Flowers. The upper body above the navel—an English park pretending to be free, no angles, no paving stones, naturelike, humanlike, in our image, after our likeness, its arms linking up with the big night all around. And my lower body, beneath the navel—sometimes a nature preserve, wild, frightening, amazing, an unpreserved preserve, and sometimes a Japanese garden, concentrated, full of forethought. And the penis and testes are smooth polished stones with dark vegetation between them, precise paths fraught with meaning and calm reflection. And the teachings of my father and the commandments of my mother are birds of chirp and song. And the woman I love is seasons and changing weather, and the children at play are my children. And the life my life. 2 I’ve never been in those places where I’ve never been and never will be, I have no share in the infinity of light-years and dark-years, but the darkness is mine, and the light, and my time is my own. The sand on the seashore—those infinite grains are the same sand where I made love in Achziv and Caesarea. The years of my life I have broken into hours, and the hours into minutes and seconds and fractions of seconds. These, only these, are the stars above me that cannot be numbered. 3 And what is my life span? I’m like a man gone out of Egypt: the Red Sea parts, I cross on dry land, two walls of water, on my right hand and on my left. Pharaoh’s army and his horsemen behind me. Before me the desert, perhaps the Promised Land, too. That is my life span. 4 Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed within us. And when we die, everything is open again. Open closed open. That’s all we are. 5 What then is my life span? Like shooting a self-portrait. I set up the camera a few feet away on something stable (the one thing that’s stable in this world), I decide on a good place to stand, near a tree, run back to the camera, press the timer, run back again to that place near the tree, and I hear the ticking of time, the whirring like a distant prayer, the click of the shutter like an execution. That is my life span. God develops the picture in His big darkroom. And here is the picture: white hair on my head, eyes tired and heavy, eyebrows black, like the charred lintels above the windows in a house that burned down. My life span is over. 6 I wasn’t one of the six million who died in the Shoah, I wasn’t even among the survivors. And I wasn’t one of the six hundred thousand who went out of Egypt. I came to the Promised Land by sea. No, I was not in that number, though I still have the fire and the smoke within me, pillars of fire and pillars of smoke that guide me by night and by day. I still have inside me the mad search for emergency exits, for soft places, for the nakedness of the land, for the escape into weakness and hope, I still have within me the lust to search for living water with quiet talk to the rock or with frenzied blows. Afterwards, silence: no questions, no answers. Jewish history and world history grind me between them like two grindstones, sometimes to a powder. And the solar year and the lunar year get ahead of each other or fall behind, leaping, they set my life in perpetual motion. Sometimes I fall into the gap between them to hide, or to sink all the way down. 7 I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment millions of human beings are standing at crossroads and intersections, in jungles and deserts, showing each other where to turn, what the right way is, which direction. They explain exactly where to go, what is the quickest way to get there, when to stop and ask again. There, over there. The second turnoff, not the first, and from there left or right, near the white house, by the oak tree. They explain with excited voices, with a wave of the hand and a nod of the head: There, over there, not that there, the other there, as in some ancient rite. This too is a new religion. I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment.

I wave good-bye when butter flies and cheer a boxing match, I've often watched my pillow fight, I've sewn a cabbage patch, I like to dance at basket balls or lead a rubber band, I've marvelled at a spelling bee, I've helped a peanut stand. It's possible a pencil points, but does a lemon drop? Does coffee break or chocolate kiss, and will a soda pop? I share my milk with drinking straws, my meals with chewing gum, and should I see my pocket change, I'll hear my kettle drum. It makes me sad when lettuce leaves, I laugh when dinner rolls, I wonder if the kitchen sinks and if a salad bowls, I've listened to a diamond ring, I've waved a football fan, and if a chimney sweeps the floor, I'm sure the garbage can.

I went into the Maverick Bar In Farmington, New Mexico. And drank double shots of bourbon backed with beer. My long hair was tucked up under a cap I’d left the earring in the car. Two cowboys did horseplay by the pool tables, A waitress asked us where are you from? a country-and-western band began to play “We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie” And with the next song, a couple began to dance. They held each other like in High School dances in the fifties; I recalled when I worked in the woods and the bars of Madras, Oregon. That short-haired joy and roughness— America—your stupidity. I could almost love you again. We left—onto the freeway shoulders— under the tough old stars— In the shadow of bluffs I came back to myself, To the real work, to “What is to be done.”

I have made love with Pablo Neruda On the heights of Machu Picchu I flashed the tattoo on my thigh And hitched a lowride with Luis Rodriguez I have held Adrian Louis close And danced a wild reservation two-step Until beer cans and disposable diapers Spun around us like stars. I have surrendered to Leonel Rugama’s Burning adolescent heat And caressed Roque Dalton From a luxuriance of bed sheets and red wine. I stayed up all night reading Sherman Alexie, Nine months later, I gave birth to twin poems. This lust is not heterosexual. I devour Nikki Giovanni and Patricia Smith Like Sao Tome chocolate. I have been known to steal away for An afternoon tryst with Julia de Burgos. I wrap Nellie Wong around me like a silk robe. Tonight, I have a date to share a steamy bath With Linda Hogan and Joy Harjo And it’s gonna be gooooood . . .

Era gia l’ora che volge il desio.

A piece of green pepper fell off the wooden salad bowl: so what?

1 Picture a woman riding thunder on the legs of slavery    ... 2 Picture her kissing our spines saying no to the eyes of slavery    ... 3 Picture her rotating the earth into a shape of lives becoming    ... 4 Picture her leaning into the eyes of our birth clouds    ... 5 Picture this woman saying no to the constant yes of slavery    ... 6 Picture a woman jumping rivers her legs inhaling moons    ... 7 Picture her ripe with seasons of legs    ...   running    ... 8 Picture her tasting the secret corners of woods    ... 9 Picture her saying: You have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars, to change the world

i. Spring the tips of each pine the spikes of telephone poles hold gathering crows may’s errant mustard spreads wild across paved road look both ways roadside treble cleft feeding gopher, paws to mouth cheeks puffed with music yesterday’s spring wind ruffling the grey tips of fur rabbit dandelion ii. Summer turkey vulture feeds mechanical as a red oil rig head rocks down up down stiff-legged dog rises goes grumbling after squirrel old ears still flap snowy egret—curves, lines, sculpted against pond blue; white clouds against sky banded headed bird this ballerina killdeer dance on point my heart iii. Fall leaf wind cold through coat wails over hills, through barren trees empty garbage cans dance damp September night lone farmer, lighted tractor drive memory’s worn path sky black with migration flocks settle on barren trees leaf birds, travel songs october moon cast over corn, lighted fields crinkled sheaves of white iv. Winter ground painted in frost thirsty morning sun drinks white leaves rust golds return winter bare branches hold tattered cups of summer empty nests trail twigs lace edges of ice manna against darkened sky words turn with weather now one to seven deer or haiku syllables weave through winter trees Northern follows jig body flashes with strike, dive: broken line floats up.