LONG WALKING

 

LONG WALKING

In January, 1968, I took an R&R from 85th Evac Hospital, Qui Nhon, took a train from Tokyo to Zao to ski. Kimonos and Futonjis in room. Flying back into Tan Sanh Nhut, Tet had begun, worlds in chaos. Round the clock months-long continual evacuations, young North Vietnamese under B52 bombs wrapped in gauze. I’ll ski White Pass today, eat cookies at High Camp with my notebook, and read some poems. A powder day.

●

When the long walking began

I just can’t say. In the unborn

belonging and the stupidity of the heart

coming to play in matters of faith,

winter faith matters, seeding itself.

Looking back through two notebooks

and shreds of evidence, tabulating

places, rest stops and mileage.

It’s snowing and workers

are putting up forms, sheet rocking

in snow. The street, snow-filled,

rutted and icy, but better for one’s feet,

because the unevenness of snow

works one’s body into its own

flexibility, and hiking boots

keep one’s ankles steady.

Nineteen years ago I left the classroom

carrying a notebook and a camera.

That’s what I thought about

as tears flowed. Still 58,

days before my birthday,

the same age as Charles Dickens

when he died. Some times

half page a day, sometimes

baking cookies in the kitchen,

scraps of recipes come from my head.

The twisted tree lives its life

while the right tree

ends up in planks

is what the Chinese say.

Another day walking

and after-walking in the notebook,

a blessingway walk, what I say

half-believing. So many

different walks.

Walks of privilege, walks of shame.

El Camino in Spain, Camino de Santiago.

Wonderland trail around Tahoma,

Pasayton Boundary Trail with that added

cut straight south another 15 miles.

The Long Walk of the Navajo.

Trail of Tears of the Cherokee.

Bruce Trail in Canada

Inca Trail in Peru

and Bright Angel Trail

into the beginning of time,

hands on the Vishnu Schist.

Two years walking the housing development

The decades of Tent City.

Poets walking the 19^th Century.

Wordsworth and Coleridge in the Alps.

John Keats walking North into Scotland.

44 days and a shipride home.

●

The Trail of Tears cuts through eight states.

South Appalachia. Population

90% reduced from Smallpox.

A constitution and a written alphabet.

The Indian Removal Act of 1829,

Andrew Jackson ignores the Supreme Court.

Homeless in their own country.

Signed the treaty in 1835 opposed by 90%

of their own people. 6000 troops enter their territory

and the roundup begins in gold fever dreams.

Prison camps and river banks.

16,000 Cherokee captives.

The March begins in winter, 1839, in drought,

managing their own removal,

wagons carrying the sick.

A National Historical Trail, this

Trail of Tears, in 1987.

Now with a website,

a National Park Service Film.

From the Diné:

Long Walk of the Navajo.

Tséyi’—Canyon de Chelly--

from Ft. Defiance, Arizona to Bosque Redondo

Fort Sumner, Nevada,

depending on one’s route,

250-450 miles, 1863-65,

10,000 Navajo marched

through the sacred mountains:

San Francisco Peaks, Mt. Taylor,

Huerfano Mountain, Gobernador Knob

and Mount Hesperus.

A discussion question:

Imagine what it would be like

to march this distance?

What helps people maintain strength in different times?

How might the Navajo stay strong?

Allowed to return in 1868.

As a result of the Long Walk,

indigenous peoples were granted

freedom of religion.

●

From the Tierra del Fuego to the northern

most part of Alaska, George Meegan walked 19,019 miles

in 2,425 days from 1977-1983,

making his the longest recorded walk.

●

And returning to what matters,

Quanah Brightman asks,

What’s underneath the land.

Beginning in the summer of 1978,

Professor Lehman L. Brightman,

President of United Native Americans,

makes the longest walk of the year

with little money or food, walking

from Reno, Nevada to the Capitol steps

in Washington D.C. to jeers,

You’ll never get out of Nevada,

while thousands cheer him on.

Supporting Indian resistance, asking,

What’s under the land?

Coal, oil, uranium, gas, water,

to save their Indian way of life.

Crazy Horse, Hoka Hey, Let’s go.

Wearing the patch for the Longest Walk.

Sacred pipe for the Four Directions,

walking that way on Turtle Island.

Walking to defeat legislation,

11 pieces had been introduced

to defeat Indian Rights.

A Blessingway Walk.

We live by an understood law.

This is how we have always lived,

confronting people who look

at a sheet of paper to know how to act.

“This is not the first time the Indian People have walked.”

We have to have people to walk.

We may be brothers after all.

We shall see.

●

Coffee finishing as I come

into the house after walking

short block of the neighborhood.

I glance at yesterday’s offering,

adding, Oh, I had pickles

with tuna on my saltines

yesterday. This is my life

reading psalms, all this opening

to God revealing all that is

dark within me. This God

is a quiet one. Photosynthesis

goes on. The leaves,

yes the leaves clean up

continuosly, the air,

But you will light my lamp,

Lord. You have penetrated

the darkness that I called for.

Gail is out with her little dog.

I can’t talk. We all have colds

and we’re testing for Covid.

Let us know. Let us know

how he is. As for the psalms,

they have opened for walkers

and you have given me this day.

God breaks the teeth of evil

and those who carry lies.

He’ll do it again and again,

walking, after-walking,

walk on, walk with the anxieties,

work with the ancestors

carrying Torah in their bones.

Those three psalms, 3, 37, 87,

read them with coffee.

Arrows hit their mark once again,

and every step marks compassion

for the poor tucked into your headband.

All of this elevation come from skis,

the drift if unweighting, unbound memory.

Jim Bodeen

25 March 2023