She Plays in a Big River

She plays in a big river,
occasionally looks back at me on the bank
as I sit
in the incredibly wind-swept grass.
When I am here I think of the Celilio Native American people;
ghosts on wooden platforms embedded in the cliffs, netting fish, clubbing them.
But the cliffs are gone, the dam sits inevitably,
the fishermen stand in air now above us. Their descendants live on thin strips of land
pinned between man-blasted cliff faces
of  I-84,
(the road leading to my birth desert,
but I don't think about that)
I look at her
in her brown skirt, brown skin
smiling so slightly, sweetly,
like she does when she is truly happy.
Trees around me shake in the unyielding wind boldly; not afraid
and I am reminded why I love them, why I love her.
She plays in a big river
and I lay on this soil-hair, gently playing with it in my fingers,
smiling back at her
trying to ignore fishermen in the air
and their blood.

Photo of FO by Wayne R. Flower