Grammy was 17 when a dark haired stranger
Migrant worker, flashing eyes
Strong, lean, with red-tanned skin
Smiled, and her loins were lost to him.

She told me tales of
Grave robbery, tricks by
June to get her to drive
Putting her hand on a well placed
Skull, still sprouting hair,
on the stick shift,
How it fell apart to her touch.
She remembered their laughter;
The horror.

Her shanty Irish father
Accepted her pregnancy
long as the boy did right,
Worked hard, drank hard,
Loved his family.
But her German mom  
Fear in her, kept Gram home
Even after the marriage
To prevent her from
Being stolen to the reservation
Where she could have her child
And then be flung from there, him
Ripped from her,
Never see him again.
Vague perceptions
Of a world unknown and laws
That were strange.

Grammy was wild,
Climbing a tree in her 7’th month
Only to be shot down by her brother,
bb-gun to the abdomen.
Her fall made the baby come early.
Surviving in a warming tray
Wrapped in blankets,
In the bread-rising side of the oven
Like a loaf waiting to be baked.
Ugly baby, she said
All hair, no fingernails
Little monkey
Later so handsome
The women would say
He looked like Elvis.

He looked like Elvis
Because he refused to part his hair
Down the middle
Because it made him look
Like “Big Chief Tomahawk”
Among the other names
The kids used for him.
White kids with their
Blue eyes and pale skin
rocks, sticks, fists.

He once hopped an ice float
On the Kennebec River
At age 7
Float downstream,
Peace.
The screaming people on
The riverbank just thought
He was trouble.
He remembered his friend
Who tried to escape with him
Slipping into the dark cold water.
Even after he was grown
He blamed himself for the death
As much as they did.

He was tough, sturdy
Barrel-chested and sensitive.
He knew how to fight.  
And he fought.
He knew how to love,
And he loved.
What he loved, who he loved
He did with intensity;
Commitment.
My mother, other women,
Me, my sisters, his buddies
Hunting, fishing, gardening,
Singing, writing, reading.
His humor sarcastic,
Painful,
worse when he was drunk
Hiding his remorse.  

My father and I had more
Than four seasons
There was ice-fishing,
Rabbit, open water
Fishing, brook trout
Fishing,
Planting, growing,
Harvesting
Bird, Duck, Bear
Deer, Moose back
To Rabbit season.
Squirrel and frog
also on the menu at times.
I grew to know which season
By smells in the air.  
Our favorite was duck season
Because the crisp air also
Meant fresh apples to eat
From trees in hidden orchards
Long forgotten.

He once told me
He hated skinning
Bears, because they
Looked like us underneath.
He taught me how to skin
Then tan hides, how
To walk stealthily so deer
Can’t hear you coming.
“Stop snapping twigs!”
He’d hiss.
I never got that part right.  
He told me I was Indian
So walk like one.
Later I was Native American.
He told me I could meet them
Sometime
When I was older.

When I was older
We received news of my grandfather’s death
Someone I had never met.
I walked into the funeral home,
Turned the corner and saw my father in a casket
I turned back in terror
To see my daddy behind me.  
My heart beating wildly
I refused to walk up to the dead man.
I don’t want my father to be dead.
But he is now.
Gone too early, like his father,
To the same illness,
Same vices that killed him.

In the end,
His life’s lesson
Was that you can be just as alone
In a crowded city
As you can on a mountain.
He told me this.

Now I try to make sense of it
Why persecute your own son
Why tell him his family is no good
Why tell him the rotten Indians are
Nothing but drunks and thieves
Who will steal him, make him one of them.
My father joined the army at age 16
To escape the pregnancy of a woman
Prior to my mother,
The boy was born to a different father
Whose signature graced his birth
Freed my father, and
Gave him a name I’ll never know.
Dad served in Korea at 17,
Accidentally killed his sergeant in a brawl,
Was discharged an alcoholic.
No one did this to him.
He chose his own path
Fought his demons, fought himself.

If I could stand before the tribe
Barefoot, vulnerable, free
I would say
Look into my eyes
I am you.
You are me.
You would see
How I ache to be
Finally recognized
I am Mic Mac.