December 2017
Susan Deer Cloud
susandeer@gmail.com
susandeer@gmail.com
I am a mixed lineage Catskill Indian who currently divides her time between living in the mountains and roving in America and abroad. I call the Catskills the Manitou Mountains after the spirit and mists that pervade them, and I feel an affinity for their lingering panther presence. Even before I was sent off to school I understood that I had been born a dreamer, a poet and storyteller. An alumna of Binghamton University and Goddard College, over the years I have had countless poems, stories, and essays published in literary journals and anthologies. My most recent poetry books are Before Language, Hunger Moon and Fox Mountain, and my editing work includes the two-volume Native anthology I Was Indian (Before Being Indian Was Cool). I am the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, especially gratifying given some of the harder seasons in my life when I studied and created in poverty and solitude. https://sites.google.com/site/susandeercloud/
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This poem and photograph are from 1968, the year I graduated from high school and began college. During my first semester I began taking part in anti-War marches, and my hope for peace intensified when my two oldest brothers were drafted and the eldest was sent to Vietnam. That bittersweet seventeen year old girl-woman still exists inside the elder I now am, still dreaming of the better world.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This poem and photograph are from 1968, the year I graduated from high school and began college. During my first semester I began taking part in anti-War marches, and my hope for peace intensified when my two oldest brothers were drafted and the eldest was sent to Vietnam. That bittersweet seventeen year old girl-woman still exists inside the elder I now am, still dreaming of the better world.
To the War Machine on Christmas Eve 1968
The lights shine tender on the blue spruce tree,
the rhapsodic Christmas season is upon us.
Eyes of Jesus the Revolutionary.
In my arms I hold the little boy cousin,
and he is gentle in the spell of quivering colors
and wood scent.
On our faces we feel sad Rembrandt hues and shadows.
He looks up at me and touches my cheek
as if there were a question in mind.
Silent, most holy, night.
The lights shine tender on the blue spruce tree,
the rhapsodic Christmas season is upon us.
Eyes of Jesus the Revolutionary.
In my arms I hold the little boy cousin,
and he is gentle in the spell of quivering colors
and wood scent.
On our faces we feel sad Rembrandt hues and shadows.
He looks up at me and touches my cheek
as if there were a question in mind.
Silent, most holy, night.
©2017 Susan Deer Cloud