Smoky Mountains and Carolina mud
were red like the Cherokee in Ocanaluftee.
Last summer Mama told me I show Indian blood.
Some grandmother with the last name Wood
married into my totemless Virginia clan.
To my English eyes they could do no good
but give secrets of tobacco and corn.
While summer rain turned soft soil to mud,
this news turned my whims to Indian.
I forced open a book, a child to a bud,
skimmed pages on Tsalagi history as told by whites.
My clan never asked her about the stream
of Cherokee tears I read about.
They never even asked her Cherokee name
or whether she believed in Christ Jehovah.
Last summer I drove to the reservation.
A red man in a chief costume took tips to pose for snapshots.
A fat guide spoke of the Cherokee nation
and took us on a walk through a recreated village.
Si-yu, he said, meant hello.
DeSoto showed us to make mud huts
he said, on his way past fourhundredfifty years ago.
The tour concluded at a square snack bar.
where he said, wa-do means thank you.
I wrote that down, and walked to the car
waved at the man, and drove away.
English as that grandmother, American as me,
no stories to hear, no spirits to see.
I mourned, driving home, through Carolina mud,
what good does it do, to show Indian blood.
©1995 BY JEFFREY STANLEY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.