Esther Belin

I. The empty of stomach manifests silence a stillness that levels coffee in a cup and in a respectful manner allows steam to penetrate the surface. Reversal of action has created my sandstone canyon rooted cedar and sage at my feet. This movement is where a tranquility stems. II. When my child creates bubbles through a soapy wand, I occupy the action of fate that bursts the perfect form. A halcyon absorbed nesting within the existence of the form that no longer exists. The formless form is where my mind floats. III. It is easy to give form especially with English words a promotion of mechanical ligaments binding spirit with assembly-fabricated molds. Just as my hair poses an appendage of my brain my tongue poses an appendage of my heart. I cannot classify this thought as a typewritten symbol. An ideogram of essence cultivates my stillness to action.

I. I like to travel to L.A. by myself My trips to the crowded smoggy polluted by brown indigenous and immigrant haze are healing. I travel from one pollution to another. Being urban I return to where I came from My mother survives in L.A. Now for over forty years. I drive to L.A. in the darkness of the day on the road before CHP one with the dark driving my black truck invisible on my journey home. The dark roads take me back to my childhood riding in the camper of daddy’s truck headed home. My brother, sister and I would be put to sleep in the camper and sometime in the darkness of the day daddy would clime into the cab with mom carrying a thermos full of coffee and some Pendleton blankets And they would pray before daddy started the truck for journey mercies. Often I’d rise from my lullaby sleep and stare into the darkness of the road the long darkness empty of cars Glowy from daddy’s headlights and lonesome from Hank Williams’ deep and twangy voice singing of cold nights and cheatin’ hearts. About an hour from Flagstaff the sun would greet us and the harsh light would break the darkness and we’d be hungry from travel and for being almost home. II. I know the darkness of the roads endless into the glowy path before me lit by the moon high above and the heat rising from my truck’s engine. The humming from tires whisper mile after mile endless alongside roadside of fields shadowy from glow. I know the darkness of the roads It swims through my veins dark like my skin and silenced like a battered wife. I know the darkness of the roads It floods my liver pollutes my breath yet I still witness the white dawning.

We brought Hannah home today in afternoon sun with a crisp chill in the air on a hill overlooking the bay. Two women with a child and a shovel and a frozen placenta wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a red plastic bag. Hannah was brought into this world some say fourth others say fifth five days before. Before we brought her home. The weekend of rain softened the earth but the cold discouraged the shovel from denting more than the surface. I dug into the earth. The ground weakened beneath the strength I put into the shovel pounding the ground smooth and moist at first then cold and solid. Pounding the ground warmed my arms. I thought good thoughts for Hannah and her mother and prayed for us all. Remembering those who have passed on and those to be born and I thought of my children to be born and I thought of my father who has passed on. Breaking into the cold ground I thought of the day we brought my father home. Dinétah winter had frozen the ground and the earth chipped like ice, slivers of crunchy cold beneath our feet. Our bodies warmed by our work and the earth chipped like an old tree being chopped, taking hours to finish. Our bodies tired from our work and the earth piled high beside the hole like the clouds and just as fluffy. Our bodies natural returning to the ground. I dug into the ground digging out earth that would nourish Hannah digging out life that would embody Hannah and soon a small hole appeared four feet deep. There we stood two women with a child and a shovel and a frozen placenta wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a red plastic bag. The frozen mass of tissue and blood and life was placed in the small hole by Hannah’s mother and I felt her heat tissue and blood and life squatting with bloodied hands and cold earth bringing Hannah home.