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FOR ELIZABETH DEANNA HOPE
When you were born,
I held
your six pound body.
I held
your little red hands.
You looked at me
directly,
not entirely trusting,
until you found
it warm enough
to sleep
in my arms.
How lucky we are
to be put in these bodies!
Even my sadness
tastes sweet.
Even my bitterness
crackles in my palms,
like gravel.
If God was
the desire
that wouldn't let
me sleep,
if God was
a man and a woman,
who bathe in
a waterfall,
or, briefly,
in the spring rain,
if God was
the tongue
that brushed
every corner
of my heart,
if God was
the messenger
who tells me
of the music
I heard
before
I was born,
then I pray
every day,
constantly.
I want to tell you
about all these things.
It’s not easy,
you’ll be disappointed
so many times,
sometimes by me.
Sometimes you'll
need to stand firm,
and even put away,
for a while,
your gifts.
But leave a drop
of sweetness
in a place
where only
you can find it.
When I was four,
a boy told me
God is everywhere.
Immediately,
I imagined
a hundred
invisible little men,
wandering,
aimlessly,
everywhere.
I still turn my head,
every now and then,
thinking
I'll see Him.
ELIZABETH FREDA HOPE
My first memory
was in a shower,
my mother’s eyes were closed,
holding me,
swaying,
brushing me with water and soap.
If I could go as far back
as when I first saw light,
I might have heard my mother
whisper,
“My baby.”
Though I could have dreamed this.
After an argument with my father,
after he spent days away
from our home
at university housing,
my mother was up all night.
She told me never to choose
a girl over my dreams.
I told her yes,
though I didn’t understand her.
She told me the story
of Asraaq, Blueberry Girl
Who Became a She-Bear.
I would run off
before the story was over.
But I remember how Asraaq
pulled her lip over her face
to hide herself in fear
of the brown bear,
the brown bear
who became her husband,
the brown bear
who became our relative.
We know the heart’s absence,
but not its return,
not until we sit past
the end of the story.
Sometimes I imagine my mother
when she was younger,
so beautiful,
a huge smile,
hippie jeans,
riding her motorcycle,
away from her home in Kotzebue,
getting to know America.
I want to make her dreams come true.
I want to forget
that I always tried to be her hero.
I want to tear away the years that passed.
I want to stay in the walks
through Totem Park,
and the rain that came through the leaves.
IN MEMORY OF ANDREW HOPE III
Before airport security
was like it is today,
my brother Andy and I
used to run up the tunnel
as my father’s plane landed,
jumping up and down,
as we begged for whatever
gift he brought us.
Usually it was a bag of peanuts,
and we smiled as he picked us up.
I never knew what he did for work,
until he started calling me at my office,
talking through ideas and new projects.
I was happy to give him money
when he was looking for a job.
When I just started learning
how to live on my own,
my friend Chris was helping me
move my stuff to a new apartment.
He gave Chris my mother’s book of poems,
and he said,
“If anyone screws with you,
fuck ‘em.”
And he lifted his middle finger.
“Fuck ‘em.”
And I learned something
about standing on my own.
My father hardly ever looked up,
and even his friends rarely
looked him in the eyes.
But sometimes
he would play Van Morrison
or Lucinda Williams
in his living room,
and I would see his soul wake up.
I would see his heart making confessions.
I would see the rocks on his shoulders
melt and float with the music.
I share some of my father’s burdens.
The duty to his people,
as old as dust,
as heavy as grindstone,
the straight line that he walked
through the killer whale’s mouth.
And some of those burdens
don’t have names yet.
They drift in the room like smoke,
drifting to the edge
where my father stood.