Removal Act: Native Preacher

A cradle still warm… a bubbling pot with no lid… So swiftly did
Government troops sweep down that the Cherokees hardly found
time for a last look at home.
                                                                                                                     —Marilou Awiakta

locked inside the camp    at Rattlesnake Springs    styed    unwatered
unfed    muddy    night sky star-pricked    lit by a smear of moon    David
with splinters in his hand    tracing his sore palm with his finger    tracing
the eighty-five characters    Eliza once held his aching foot    plucked a

thorn    with shells so thin    he thought they would break    his child in her
belly    she’s blanketed, snoring    curled on her side    some people with
deer-hides for beds    some the hard-packed earth    cupped in his hands,
the holy book    that he keeps in his tobacco pouch    if he had ink

for translating a psalm    he could print near the English verses    all the
words    he knows in syllabary    his words pouring down the margins    if
he had slippery elm    touch-me-nots    wild ginger for Eliza    tomorrow, if
he asks softly, meekly    if the officers permit him    to baptize his

people in the Ayuhwasi    some chance, then    for the medicine elder to
sing    carry out the old ways    help Eliza go into the waters    from wood
scraps the officers gave them    David’s converts make    rough benches
for the old, the sick    a place for preaching    hymns    holding church

inside the camp    tomorrow, if the officers let him    dip his neighbors
standing in the river    he will read a revelation    his feet planted among
mussels    who spin grit in their wet mouths    calling for the holy ghost,
the cloud of fire    he will stand    among stones tumbled smooth