Black Hawk's Bones

(Words in italics are those recorded as having been uttered
 by Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kai-Kiak, known to white settlers
 as Chief Black Hawk)

He had lived too long.  He'd watched a never-ceasing wave
Of settlers move in, unearthing the graves of his ancestors
With their plows, putting up fences, debasing with their liquor,
Demeaning with their laws or damning with their religion.
Theirs were not his tribal ways, theirs was not his God.
The Earth is our mother - we are now on it
With the Great Spirit above it.  It is good."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

"Rock River was a beautiful country.  I fought for it.
It is now yours - keep it as we did - it will produce good crops."
The elderly Sauk statesman, whose bones now ached as though
He'd waken from a sleep upon frozen, unforgiving ground
Gazed out at the white, mostly unfamiliar, some hostile, faces
Who had come to hear him, not out of respect, but curiosity.
"I was once a great warrior.  I am now poor."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

"I have looked upon the Mississippi since
I have been a child.  I love the Great River.  I have dwelt
Upon its banks from the time I was an infant."  Not entirely true.
He and his people had been driven west, until a yearning for home
Moved him to lead his tribe in an effort to reclaim their heritage.
"White men came year after year to cheat them and take away their lands.
I have done nothing for which an Indian ought to feel ashamed."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Their doomed quest was met with military might, a pursuit
That chased his people down at the Bad Axe River, where cornered,
They were picked off by sharpshooters who showed no more mercy
Toward squaws and children than they did toward braves -
Firing at them as though they were rats rather than human beings.
"A few winters ago I was fighting against you.  I did wrong, perhaps,
But that is past - it is buried - let it be forgotten."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

The ultimate dishonor came soon after his death.
The old Chief's bones were dug up, stolen, cleaned and varnished
By a shyster intent on displaying the skeleton for profit.
Black Hawk's son appealed to the white man's justice
That had failed his people so often in the past.
Asking that the bones be retrieved and the thief punished.
They were recovered and identified by Black Hawk's widow.
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Bones however engender no respect, unless considered
Saintly relics.  Black Hawk's were not viewed as such. 
The box of bones eventually was lost track of, rumored
To have been incinerated in a Burlington office fire,
Or more likely, buried without ceremony in a potter's field
That section of a cemetery reserved for the indigent,
Those too poor to pay for a marker of remembrance.
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Such an ignoble end to such a noble life,
To have such a forgiving spirit callously discarded,
His remains lost to history, giving us no Canterbury
To make a pilgrimage to; no gravesite to visit,
No bones to become the objects of our veneration.
"He is satisfied.  He will go to the world of spirits contented.
He has done his duty.  His father will meet him there, and commend him."
"It has pleased the Great Spirit that I am here today."

Packing House Patriotism

The inexorable movement of the chain of death
Suddenly clunked to a halt
The  morning of September 11th, 2014.
A scratchy announcement blared
From the seldom-used intercom system.

"We are observing a moment of silence
In memory of those who died
At the hands of terrorists
Eleven years ago today in New York City."

Hog carcasses, still warm from having passed
Through the singers, polishers and showers,
Drip blood and water into the drain troughs
Steam rises from the "hot pots" that we use
To sterilize our knives in.

For a minute silence reigned
As some of us paused to reflect;
Others just enjoyed the respite from drudgery.

Then the chain began moving again.

At 10:40
The Kill Floor took their scheduled break,
Shortened by a minute on this hallowed anniversary,
To compensate for time that had been so generously
Donated by the line workers
Without their consent
To honor the dead.

Corporate America will proudly
Wave the flag and pay vocal homage
To the Nation's fallen heroes
With as much show as anyone;
Just so long as doing so doesn't slow production
Or cut into their bottom line.

Those Moments

I've not yet found a way to summon them
At will, but I'm grateful when they do appear;
Those moments that occur far too seldom
In my life, and always when I'm alone.

Scaling a gentle rise in an Illinois field,
Surrounded by billowing prairie grasses
That bend to confide their secrets to the breeze;
Following a trail into a North Shore forest
Suddenly hushed, as though fearful of my presence;
Or hiking along the Lake Superior shoreline,
Watching the waves caress the pebbled beach
Only to see them gently rebuffed.
They retreat, only to muster the resolve
To approach the indifferent land again.
This eternal ritual of sea and shore's
Unrelenting courtship and rejection
Lays its soothing hand upon my soul.

I sigh,
Breathe deeply
And as I exhale

My sadness
My despair
My bitterness
All my unfulfilled yearnings,
All my shortcomings
Pass from me for some moments

Until the glimpse of a plane,
The distant honk of a horn,
The far away bark of a dog
Or the intrusion of another human
Into the scene wrenches me
From these moments of epiphany.

I become resentful and sullen again,
Like a weed pulled from its nurturing soil,
Its naked roots dangling, futilely longing to return
To the sustenance that it had been plucked from,
Despairing as to whether it can ever find it again.

Don't Lay Away Your Todays for Tomorrow

Don't lay away your todays for tomorrow.
See Paris when you're young.  Fall in love there.
Rent a gondola on the Grand Canal,
Climb above the clouds to Machu Picchu,
Take time off to find yourself if you need to.
Wander a quiet wood or walk the shore
Of a sun-catching lake on a May day,
Or just sit in a park and feed the squirrels.

The "boss," the punch clock, the unfulfilling tasks
All become shackles that render us "wage slaves."
Working towards those ends may be virtuous
To some, usually the employers who peddle
That line, but most of us who pursue our dreams
Discover that the prize that we've desired
Has eluded our grasp or has been wrested from us,
Rendering our lives  exercises in futility.

When you visit a nursing home, "listen."
Mournful sobs plunge past despair's deepest depth
Into realms of more pitiless sorrow.
Wretched warehoused souls who wait upon death
Can never forget, and most deeply regret, .
Having laid away their yesterdays for today.

The Slaughter Plant

Terrified, the dumb brutes panic at being drive.
They sense and smell the death that lurks beyond the doorway.
Their only escape from the electric shock prod though
Is that ominous exit.  A madness born of the fear of pain
Drives the beasts into the mechanics of slaughter.

The thunderclap of a rifle shot rocks its bovine brain.
The animal drops.  Its hind legs are then tightly shackled
And its body yanked ceilingward so the throat-slitter
Can pierce its jugular vein with barbarian finesse,
His rubber boots sloshing through a morass of blood.

At times the animal reaches the throat-slitter
Still weakly kicking, still clutching at existence
Through a panic of uncomprehending pain.
Its doom has been pre-ordained though at it meets
The remorseless attack of the god with a knife.

Two hundred and eighty-five head of beef an hour
Will be processed with calculated precision.
That's the brutal, inexorable certainty
Beneath the din and the frenzied activity;
The callous constant movement of the chain of death.

The headers, bung-droppers, belly-openers, gut-snatchers,
Kidney-poppers, split-saw operators, shavers, lard pullers,
Hock cutters, skinners, hide-pullers, bone-grinders, luggers,
The blood-dryers, the cookers, the gang in offal pack,
All move in like jackals to devour the corpse.

They all participate in the rendering of life
Into lard, table cuts, boneless trim, fertilizer,
Gelatin and hides.  All are hardened to the horror,
Helmeted like the SS Guards who took a smug pride
In their processing of so many "sub-humans" an hour.

Their scabbards clanging against their bloody chain belts,
The helmeted Kill-Floor crew files out for lunch,
Removing their mesh gloves, their wrist guards, their ear plugs
And their aprons before they wash the blood from their hands.
Fragments of their conversation reverberate through the cafeteria.

They talk of sports.....
"Think the Bucks have a chance against the Bulls tonight?"
They talk of women.....
"I met this gorgeous bitch last night at Callahan's...man"
They talk of money.....
"I put 18 hours of overtime in so far this week."

Apparitions of the men who pulled the gold teeth,
Led victims to the showers, stoked the ovens, took head count
Of the trainloads of frightened humanity being herded into camp;
They gaze upon the lunchroom scene and knowingly smile
With an understanding rooted in their death-camp kinship.

It was thus at Aushwitz, Ravensbruck and Dachau.
Carloads of human cattle were ruthlessly dispatched
With a business Aryan efficiency, as blithely
As we kill now to placate a growling stomach.

So it will be in the next war to come as well.
The mechanics of slaughter that we serve, win or lose,
Will be paid for in souls that have atrophied;
That have shriveled into a hardness that feels no pity,
That grants no mercy; that no longer knows
Or cares anymore about examining their actions;
Men that have forgotten how to love or forgive.

I don't wish to become a man like that.

The Couple on the Park Bench

The elderly couple sitting on the park bench
Lean into each other as they quietly whisper,
So as not to disturb the air, scare the chipmunks
or drive away the pigeons that they love to feed,
They visit softly as they comment on the foliage.
His eyesight failing, he sees it as Monet would
Paint it, as blurred yet vibrant impressions of color.
She sees more clearly, brilliant orange, reds and yellows,
Leaves that seem to burst into flame as the light
Shatters its brightness upon them and seems to ignite
Blazes that loom over the fading frost-touched grass.

Their was a time when their passion burned that strong,
A time when her slightest touch, or even just her
Presence could arouse an excitement and desire in him
That frightened him at first by its intensity.
His need was so great; her power over him so complete.

Now he puts his arm around her, and she'll brush his cheek
Just slightly with her fingertips, or reach to hold his hand.
Their fingers intertwine as they watch the first fall
Flutter of leaves let go and float to the ground,
Soon to become the brittleness that precedes fall decay.
They feel the brittleness of age in their own bones as well,
But they derive comfort and reassurance from each other.
They wrap themselves in the downy comforter
Of companionship and shared memories, and nestle
Closer to each other as winter approaches.

The Gamemaster

A good gamemaster plays God with gusto;
He's a deity that delights in deviousness,
An architect of puzzles and pitfalls
Crafted in arcane clues and obtuse riddles.
Why can't a god speak to us with clarity?
What sadistic strain of inscrutable malice
Or puckish perversity of the divine mind
Cloaks our path of life in a fog of confusion?

Rick was a consummate gamemaster.
To play a character in a world that he'd created
Was to live in vicarious fear of the god
Who took such fiendish delight in confounding us
By hindering a quest or orchestrating a demise.
Fate became as irrevocable as die rolls
Coming up "snake eyes," the fangs of a disaster
Sinking its venom into one's character.

Life is so damned unfathomably random.
Maybe that's why we've come to personify fate.
"Luck be a Lady tonight," or to beseech it
With craven appeal.  "Baby needs a new pair of shoes."
Words mouthed in vain.  The only certainties of life
Are the disappointments that come of dreams deferred, 
The emptiness of desires unfulfilled, and the awful finality
Of death  There's no saving throw for cancer.

There's no saving throw for a tumor that has returned
A second and third time.  We've shaped God in our image;
Jealous, vindictive and cruel.  There's no solace in
The adamantine coldness of such an unforgiving creed.
Rick, you were a consummate gamemaster
Whose intricately imagined worlds were only matched
By the brilliant future that you were advancing toward;
A degree in computer geology, love and a family.

You rolled a character that seemed destined for greatness.
But there's no saving throw against cancer,
No logic to random fate; no reason to it.
Perhaps some divine worldcrafter is chuckling
With fiendish delight at the ironic turn of events
That shattered the snow globe of dreams that you held,
But your friends can no longer take delight in a game
Where the outcomes seem so unfair, so unjust.