mama duck to see her chicks
filled with joy and worry
like human, like duck

©Byung A. Fallgren

Changing is not Vanishing
by Carlos Montezuma

Who says Indian race is vanishing?
The Indian will not vanish.
The feathers, paint and moccasin will
vanish, but the Indians–never!
Just as long as there is a drop of human
blood in America, the Indian will not
Vanish.
His spirit is everywhere; the American
Indian will not vanish.
He has changed externally, but he has not
Vanished.
Wherever you see an Indian upholding
the standard of his race, there you see
the Indian man–he has not vanished.
The man part of the Indian is here, there
and everywhere.
The Indian race vanishing? No, never!
The race will live on and
prosper forever.

(This poem appeared in Wassaja 1, No 3, June 1916.)
Carlos Montezuma, known as Wassaja, was a Yavapai–
Apache writer and activist. A fading amber of the
society of American Indians, he was the first native
American male to receive a medical degree. He
founded the magazine Wassaja, a platform through
which he published his own writings and political
views. He died on January 31, 1923.

January

It arrives like a lad who ran miles,
sprawls on the snowy field,
put an eye on the days go by like
the wind-swept clouds.

Slipping near the end
of the stage, the fire within cools;
the heart of the frozen lake.

But the core of it still hangs on 
to the warmth of the sun by day,
shivers by night, comprehensive.  

©Byung A. Fallgren

The Lady Plumber’s Song

I, the plumber, self-employed,
With five children,
Proud as queen.
Flexible time enables me to
Care for sick child, even
Attend Paren’-Teacher conference.
On the way home,
I drop by the cemetery
At the edge of town,
To set the flower at his tombstone
Under the full moon.
“I fixed them all today!” I tell him.
“The clogged toilets at the Sam’s Club.”
So, I smell it.
I almost hear him saying
With mocking gesture.
Only then do I recall the stench that
I perceived as aroma of lilac,
My children in need of
My support. My children,
Yours and mine,
Force of my life.
I am a lady plumber,
Proud as queen.

(The stanzas and indentations of the original poem
are unable to show here due to the problem of WP editor.)

©Byung A. Fallgren

The Lady Plumber’s Song first appeared in
the Santa Clara Review, Volume 107, Issue 2, Spring 2020.
Santa Clara Review is the magazine Published by
Santa Clara University.  To subscribe the magazine, please
email santaclarareview@gmail.com.

Face Mask, not for others

The flock of gulls at the parking lot,
one wearing a face mask around her neck,
not a souvenir from a day’s trip;

she doesn’t even know how she got it,
nor does she care for it, even annoying.
She’s seen them on humans’ faces
that make her blush to see it on her?

Someone, please take this off me,
she pleads to the clouds
that seem to laugh at her.
Passing wind only try to snap it loose.

©Byung A. Fallgren

Snow
by Charles Bertram Johnson

All day the clouds
Grow cold and fall;
And soft the white fleece shrouds
Field, hill and wall;
And now I know
Why comes the snow:
The bare black places lie
Too near the sky.

“Snow” appeared in the Crisis XXI, No 2, December 1920.
Mr. Johnson was born in Callado, Missouri in 1880. He is
the author of the poetry collection, Song’s of My People
(The Corn Hill Company, 1918) among others. He worked
as a teacher and became part of the ministry.

The New Year’s Morning Owl

At dawn, the little green house sleeps
by the big pine tree, in the corner
of the lazy back yard.
Woo-woo, woo-woo, a message from

the deep voice before vanishing.
And I wonder what the message is about; with
the ghost of the year gone still float round;

with the son still recovering from
the surgery, like a tree with a broken limb;
with the pandemic yet to disappear;
with the world still in the deep thoughts
of sea, of the unresolved;
might as well it be some good news:
the son and the world will not only rebound
but prosper in the new year.
The owl hoots again, unseen.

©Byung A. Fallgren