By Laura Da’
To each orphaned child—so long as you remain close enough to walk to
your living kin you will dance, feast, feel community in food. This cannot
stand. Eighty acres allotted.
To each head of household—so long as you remember your tribal words
for village you will recollect that the grasses still grow and the rivers still
flow. So long as you teach your children these words they will remember
as well. This we cannot allow. One hundred and sixty acres allotted.
To each elder unable to till or hunt—so long as your old and injurious habits
sing out over the drum or flicker near the fire you cripple our reward. We
seek to hasten your end. Eighty acres allotted.
To each widowed wife—so long as you can make your mark, your land
may be leased. A blessing on your mark when you sign it and walk closer
to your favored white sister. Eighty acres allotted.
To each full blood—so long as you have an open hand, we shall fill it with
a broken ploughshare. One hundred and sixty acres allotted.
To each half blood, each quarter strain—so long as you yearn for the broken
ploughshare, you will be provided a spade honed to razor in its place.
When every acre of your allotment has been leased or sold, you will turn it
on yourself. From that date begins our real and permanent progress.
"A Mighty Pulverizing Machine" from Tributaries by Laura Da’. Copyright © 2018 by Laura Da’. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
Passive Voice
I use a trick to teach students
how to avoid passive voice.
Circle the verbs.
Imagine inserting “by zombies”
after each one.
Have the words been claimed
by the flesh-hungry undead?
If so, passive voice.
I wonder if these
sixth graders will recollect,
on summer vacation,
as they stretch their legs
on...
More Poems about Relationships
Her Dreams
Mommy always wanted
To be famous
She would have us (my sister and me)
Sing
In all the talent shows
But I could not carry the harmony
Then she had me
Sing
Alone
Though The Isley Brothers
Always won
Ronald’s sweet voice and Vernon
Doing “the Itch”
Sort of like Michael Jackson
Doing “the...
Native Title
my dead grandmother’s young
Japanese maple was uprooted stolen
last week scattered leaves crushed
under a stranger’s foot. to recover
...
More Poems about Social Commentaries
i love you to the moon &
not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden
with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
i was already moonlighting
as...
Self-Portrait with Sylvia Plath’s Braid
Some women make a pilgrimage to visit it
in the Indiana library charged to keep it safe.
I didn’t drive to it; I dreamed it, the thick braid
roped over my hands, heavier than lead.
My own hair was long for years.
Then I became...