November Poem

Every year or so I write a poem. I expect nothing from them, because I don't know a damn thing about the process of making poetry and so have no idea whether what I write is any good. But here's the one I wrote this week. I thought it was appropriate for the November holiday.

--

Bird Woman


having done no
research at all on
the subject, I
often think of
Sacagawea, alone with
a passel of white men for
mile after mile of
total wilderness, whether
they passed her around
as men do, whether
she was untouchable, too
valuable
to spoil like the land
they crashed through,
searching for the sea mile
after mile, her steps
quiet on the earth, along
for the journey, another
item on the manifest, whether
she hovers
above the ghosts of
trees she sheltered them under,
gone now, above
the mini-mall, her skin
untouched or not, whether
she helped them, whether
they helped themselves