Article voiceover
In the coffee shop, an elderly couple share a newspaper. They've honored this ceremony for fifty years. So lovely, lovely. They're white but I imagine them Indian until they become my father's parents, who died before I was born. Then I imagine myself sitting with my ancestors as we talk about football, politics, and the rain. They study my eyes and say, We didn't know what kind of Indian you'd become. And I reply, Dear Grandmother, Dear Grandfather, I never knew what kind of Indians you were.
Instant tears. It’s so important to me to be able to hear your audible voice in your poems for a variety of reasons. The beauty of your poem here, for me, in listening, is immediately visceral. As an adoptee, originally an abandoned newborn foundling in 1955 Spokane, I never knew my biological parents or my ancestors but I have always longed for them. Now with the advent of DNA segment analyses and genetic genealogy I know their names. There are so many beginnings.
More than well! I’m bipolar too and it’s the first time I read a poem (actually ALLyour writings) that actually affects my mood, like meds do.. Amazing!