Two recent poems

July 29, 2011

The Last Indian Found

Pelham Bay and the last Indian lives 1926.
Hunter Island, Split Rock, along that
tidal shore; found by a boy
who writes him down.

Pelham Bay, the Bronx Indian burial grounds
Morrisania, Old Ferry Point;
not birch bark but dug out canoes,
they paid taxes to the Iroquois.
Knees placed tight to their chins
when laid in shallow graves.

Drinking water, a planting place, a fishing spot,
shelter from invaders -
they lived until we found him,
1926, wild. With stories of the Civil War.


July 28, 2011
                                     The Elders

In the room, in the living room green,
I watch the elders listen to the radio;
a newspaper, a cigar, some clothing mended,
each in an assigned place:
on the sofa by the front window,
in a chair beneath the clock,
and across the room in a corner.
I heard the cuckcoo and played
piano rolls.
They revisited in their minds
the coming over on the White Star Line,
the World Wars, passing through tenements
on their way to the Bronx;
living in the ancient way
mindful of the God they knew.

copyright JJW