AT THE END OF THE WEEK, YOU WONDER ABOUT US

 

 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