This is one of my favorite poems by Sherman Alexie which resides over on one of my favorite poetry blogs, Feel Free to Read. Please do..:)Drum as Love, Fear, and Prayer
1.
Drums
make everyone feel
like an Indian.
Drums make
everyone feel
like an Indian.
Drums make everyone
feel
like an Indian
Drums make everyone feel
like an Indian.
Drums make everyone feel like
an Indian.
Drums make everyone feel like an Indian.
2.
I have more faith
in drums
than I have in the people
who play them
I told her
and she said God
is a drum.
I have more faith
in a small drum
because I can carry it
everywhere I go
I told her
and she said God
is the smallest drum.
3.
She said, dance.
It is crazy, I know, how quickly I've learned to love
this dancing, this step-step across the floor
when I'd spent my whole life
without any music. I had promised never to dance
in the white way
if I didn't dance in the Indian way first
but she said dance
refuses color when we are broken down
and embraces color when we are built again
and I believed her
and danced when I heard the drums, the drums
the drums in her voice.
4.
If love is taken
in its smallest part
will there still be enough
to frighten me? Yes
and no. I mean, if love can be
reduced to a cut bead
then I am not afraid.
But if that cut bead is sewn
into a moccasin or purse, if
that bead is part of a chain
built larger and larger, bead
by bead, then I am afraid.
Here, she said, take this bead
with honor. Then she offered another.
5.
And if I choose to love
this Indian woman
partly because she's Indian
(drum)
and if I choose to love
this Indian woman
mostly because she's Indian
(drum)
then who are you to stop
this love between
and Indian woman and man
(drum)
and who am I, who is she, now
for both of us to make these decisions together?
6.
I have broken
bread with her.
We have prayed together in silent places
where we could hear each other breathe
and in airports and lunchtime restaurants
where nothing wanted to rise above it all
except a few lonely people
with their cigarette smoke.
These prayers have not been easy, how
do we say Indian prayers in English
and which God will answer? Is God red
or white? Do these confused prayers mean
we'll live on another reservation
in that country called Heaven?
7.
Then she tells me Jesus is
still here
because Jesus was
once here
and part of Jesus are
still floating in the air.
She tells me Jesus' DNA is
part of the collective DNA.
She tells me we are all part
of Jesus, we are all Jesus
in part. She tells me to breathe deep
during all our storms
because you can sometimes taste Jesus
in a good hard rain.
8.
And I want to say this (say it)
and I want to whisper (shout)
and I want to shake the doors of the house (church)
and I want to blow a trumpet (play a drum)
and I want to run (dance)
and I want to talk about laughter (pain)
and I want to count up all the losses (magic)
and I want to blow a trumpet (play a drum)
and I want to inventory my fears (joy)
and I want to hide beneath old blankets (grace)
and I want to feast (pray)
and I want to blow a trumpet (play a drum)
and I want
to play a drum.
9.
She danced alone
before she ever knew me
and she'll dance alone
though she loves me
but for now
she dances
with me.
I take her hand.
No.
I take her face
in my hands
and I tell her
how much I believe
in her, in her.
Sherman Alexie..........from The Summer of Black Widows
Photo courtesy of Standing Bear's Manataka Weddings
