AT THE END OF THE WEEK
You wonder about us
Karen had come to bed
with news of the fires, the numbers
of people left with nothing, saying,
We’ll go as soon as we can
go through our clothes, maybe tomorrow.
Summer fires leave families
on the reservation without a toothbrush.
Homes are gone.
Just north of the res another fire breaks out
beside the fireworks stand. Red and blue lights
flashing with the flames. Platoons
of men in hard hats and hoses.
The long house in Toppenish is locked up.
At the health clinic a woman gives us directions
to the community center in White Swan.
They ask where we are from
when we sign in, mother, daughter, boy friend,
grateful clothes are sized, too. Perfect,
Perfect—what we need now, broom,
mops, Lysol, Windex, wipes.
We are so far from the news
Everything is news.
They ask us if we want to stay for lunch.
A display behind glass at the health center
catches my eye. June is Men’s month.
Footballs and hats in front of these stats:
Men more than 17% likely than women
to have cancer, 50% more likely to have hearing loss,
50% more likely than women to die of heart disease--
and yet men 50% less likely to seek preventative care.
Women outnumber men 8 to 1 by age of 100.
There’s a bicycle chain here. Condoms
in all colors, paint guns for war games,
a yellow softball. More numbers:
75% of suicides are by men,
Smokers die ten years earlier than non-smokers,
eat fruit and vegetables, get 150 minutes
of exercise a week. Wear blue for your son, husband,
friend on June 16, Men’s Month. Bundled
sage to clear the air.
The community center
for the Yakama Nation’s located
at the White Swan Ranger Station..
Signs tell people information they need.
How many in the family. Ages. Sizes.
The area they’re from.
Karen wants to keep going.
We stop in front of St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
At Signal Creek Road. Established 1889.
Ft. Simcoe’s another ten miles out.
My friend Cy started teaching at Ft. Simcoe.
Job training then, state park now.
I get out of the car and photograph
peeling paint of the old wagon,
the rusting wheels, sunshine and shadows
underneath coming from afternoon sun.
The U.S. Army arrives in 1856.
Mool -Mool Spring Village sprung here
from bubbling waters before Lewis and Clark.
We’ll return to White Swan
to eat at the Hub, the only place to eat,
across from the high school. School’s
out for summer, but it’s full of young people
happy to be here, see friends.
We split a hamburger, called The Charger--
looking at photos on walls--
100 years old we’ve never seen.
The Indian School, Strive to Achieve,
and more than a dozen pictures of Celilo Falls.
Black and White. First parsonage
of the Methodist Church, 1870.
This is Turtle Island.
Braided men in hats playing Stick Games.
The new phone camera picks up details
one can’t see in the pictures.
Eating a hamburger in a booth, the camera
zooms in on families fishing
on wet wood platforms over the Falls. Light
reflects on glass mixing with river spray,
French fries, my notebook, all wet.
No one’s fishing there now. The night before,
on television, the state of our nation
all seemed under water watching
lie after lie. My own President lost.
We’re miles from that now.
Even the fries feel right, healthy,
no high fructose syrup in the ketchup.
We take the long road home,
in and out of Fort Road, criss-crossing
the Laterals I and A, Branch again,
and graveled corners. Slow
it down. Stopping for peanuts and
cherries at the fruit stand in Union Gap.
Gary Pucket’s not here and the gap
widens. Saint’s Barber shop
in white, Where a Man Can Be a Man
and curl his mustache, Saint the Barber,
white washed right here. Blue Barber Pole
on top, mounted. It’s stunning what we believe.
All of it. These days in June.
Women at work.
Wear blue for the fathers,
wear blue for friends and co-workers.
Wear blue for your country.
The fire season is just getting started.
Jim Bodeen
20-29 June 2024
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