Ode to Sadness

A poem

Photo by Julien Andrieux on Unsplash

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Traveling to the powwow

On my reservation,

I drive past the Catholic church

Where my parents are buried.

I slow the car as I see a white couple

Taking a selfie beside

My parents’ shared gravestone.

Angry, I want to leap

From my car and confront

The white couple and accuse them

Of graverobbing.

But this is what happens with fame.

Boundaries are crossed.

I turn my private into their public.

I’m a graverobber, too.

I bury and unbury

My parents in my poems.

Most people suffer quietly,

But my grief has an audience.

I’ve often been asked if

It’s cathartic to write

About death. It’s not, 

It’s not, it’s not, it’s not.

But, sometimes, I hope

That my words might comfort

Some of my readers. Maybe

My elegies can be temporary 

Elegies for everybody gone.

My mother and father are dead.

They aren’t coming back.

I miss them, I miss them.

My grief has become

An unconscious reflex.

The pain is constant,

But I only notice it

When I pause

To think about it.

And then, damn, it’s there,

Flaying my lungs

As I inhale

And exhale. Fifteen years

After my father’s death,

And six years after

My mother’s death, 

I still find myself wailing

And thrashing. I want

To be their newborn again.

I want to be in their arms

For the first time. I want

To look up and marvel

At the two giants

Who created me.

I want them to name me

Again. I want them

To feed me. I want 

To return to that moment

When I took my first step.

I want to make them

Proud. I want them to be

The corporeal parents

To all of their children,

To all of us. So here I am

Again, pulling

My sisters and brothers

Into a poem. 

Hello, sisters.

Hello, brothers.

Say hello

To my readers.

I hope it’s okay

That I tell them

About the night

When the five of us,

Along with two hundred

Other people, most of them

Indians, sat in a theatre

To watch Smoke Signals,

The film that I wrote

And co-produced.

It was the 20th anniversary

Of the film’s release.

And my brothers

And sisters and I, per

Family tradition, sat

In five different parts

Of the theatre. We’d always

Traveled to movies together

So that we could watch them

Alone. And so we watched

The movie separately

And I was shocked to see,

In a party scene,

My mother and father

Dancing together. 

I’d forgotten

That they’d danced

Onscreen. I’d forgotten

Their cameo.

My real parents swayed

In my fictional world.

And I realized that scene

Contained the only motion

Picture of my mother

And father. It was the only way

To see them alive, alive.

And I sobbed. I tried

To sob quietly but I’m sure

That the crowd could hear me

Because I heard my siblings

Sigh and gasp and sob

For our dead parents.

In the dark theatre, I recognized

The sound of family grief.

Shared grief. Grief in the color

Of our eyes and hair. Grief

In our DNA. It’s okay,

It’s okay. We suffer alone

And together. My siblings

And I, and all of you, are born

To simultaneously love and mourn.