SEED FARM ROAD

Went to Sacaton, Arizona, 
after applying to the tribe for permission
to visit the land, my daughter and I;
met our guide at the Chevron station,
followed him down dirt roads to the raw scrub
to see what’s left of Gila River Camp,
at one time a town of 13,000 men, women and
children linked in common ancestry – Japan –
who scratched out a life a few years back in WWII.
We climbed up the butte.  He pointed out
where the old baseball diamond was laid out,
built by internees – prisoners –
who challenged the state all-star team that
came out to the reservation to play ball.
Wide-eyed, the visitors lost, 11-10 in the 10th
to Zenimura, Furukawa, Shimasaki, and others
who loved the game.
He showed us the concrete remains
of a koi pond that went under a barrack
so the fish could survive, told us how
the shade of the dirt under the shacks
was the coolest place, how the young men
hung out there and gambled and swore.  He showed us
the ironwood tree, favored wood for
carving that my grandfather practiced –
I showed him the bole made smooth by grandpa’s hands.
In gratitude for taking care of my ancestors
I offered tobacco to the spirit of the land
and the four directions, which are endless here.
Before they left they set a circle of concrete columns
and a few words up on the butte, to mark their passage.
I sat there and did mantras and dagger for lineage healing
while Chloe read aloud Dad’s recollections,
working the land, then the camp, then
the Army. We did the same ritual for Mom
at Poston Camp a few hundred miles westward,
another desert farm town of 18,000
built quickly and without asking on native American land.
These broken places are like our Stonehenge,
from which we emerged naked into America
from somewhere in deep myth.

8/31/16 rev 12/7/16