I found a sheet of paper in my "poetry scraps" folder. It was written in 1984. I am entering it below (by the way, I am no longer a Psychologist). I am also bringing in a print I have already posted, but I thought it fit with what follows:
My occupation is that of a psychologist.
I test people.
Today, I tested the Old West.
It came in
in the form of a man.
It hung around him like the dust
floating around a herd of buffalo,
yellow and gold in the rays of a setting sun.
I asked if he was an American Indian.
Stupid question.
Raising his eyes to look into mine, he said, "Yes."
Like someone had finally called him by his own name.
"What tribe?"
"Sioux."
Funny, the sound of that word...
wind across the grasses of the plains,
horses hooves,
and the crackling embers of dying fires.
Somehow as I twisted around in my technological fetters
I managed to recognize in the brown eyes of a fellow prisoner
that I was looking at a long lost brother.
My long-ago friend that shared the solitude of natural vastness.
An Indian with the first name of Jimmy
was bent but not broken.
He couldn't be where he belonged so he went where he didn't
...prison and state hospitals...
Firewater in his gut and anger in his brain.
I tossed anachronisms at him until my tape played out.
I tested the Old West
and the present was found deficient
in many ways.
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Comments: 3
Is that what happens? If you can't have total freedom would you rather have zero freedom. Like sitting in a prison cell.
I'm filled with sadness.