"To Dream Kalapuya" by Karl Young


To Dream Kalapuya by Karl Young to leave addition to sleep to dream Kalapuya language @ river, creek root, alder tree to dig uprooted broken @ parting of the hair landing place grouse to be hungry to want @ to wake up berry basket pupil of the eye fish basket wood to strike scales @ sole of foot money to live, to sit @ thunder snow interjection tight @ together bitter, sour ripe @ make noise catch fish fish hawk summer western ocean to go over waves @ bed dance horns, antlers stove chief dam @ tomorrow invite eagle to be dry @ a silent person to rain salt clouds @ daybreak to comb one's hair to shine space between knuckles @ neck waves, breakers back of head fishing basket rotten frost to steal @ to look to be glad to break @ house man wildcat hair to start @ eyebrow sinew star spoon blackberries @ desire blue jealous grow growth murderer scraper @ low tide to feel sleepy @ fair, festival to be tired to hear, to understand @ sand-beach red fox codfish morning star @ hail, beads crane, heron yesterday ant ankle wagon always @ lazy mirror, window, glass ashes anus @ ice appears ice to scare today proud dog @ twig brain to join @ salal berries to twinkle bluejay @ to shut one's eyes shoulder to hunt wells, springs @ nose salmon berries to paddle wings hand to fan a light proper name @ a green place a place that does not burn elk right away, quickly, soon fire to come, to approach to pass by, to pass out spring sturgeon @ grave to tie the hair in a knot knot in the hair trout @ to be warm a little while nephew grandson to eat food to name cougar @ willow somewhere, anywhere to lean back, to lie back to hit with a club @ to throw to dive to join grizzly bear @ smoke piss smoke shout @ west wind high tide high tide @ to start ear to hear, to listen down, below chicken hawk up, above, high, loud knife face @ black swan white swan knee out in the water @ upper lip to move in a circle in a circle to think to move @ my our two our our my our two our our our two we two we we if, then to me on me for me with me to us two to be cold crab to be sorry to be poor to be downhearted to start out to start again we two @ open feathers feathers eggs, acorn hazel wood perforation in the ear to neigh thin a cut otter @ north wind dam to take care of, watch @ to watch fire-drill the wind blows wind to go back hazel-wood post, wall @ shirt fish net to tie, to fasten mouth of the river down the river far mortar deep to get tired of waiting, to wait in vain it is dark darkness, night east a Kalapuya Indian AUTHOR'S NOTES I used a simple and relatively spontaneous method of composition in writing To Dream Kalapuya. My source for the work was Leo Frachtenberg's Lower Umpqua Texts. The book contained stories in Lower Umpqua, translations of the texts, and ended with a Lower Umpqua/English dictionary of the words used in the texts. In composition, I used strings of English equivalents of Lower Umpqua words found in the dictionary. I started and stopped wherever a string of words made poetic sense. I always stuck to the sequence of words in the dictionary (a sequence dictated by the roman alphabet) except in the last poem in the book. Frachtenberg collected the stories in his book just at the moment when Lower Umpqua culture was coming to an end. I don't have the book with me, so I don't remember Frachtenberg's exact demographics of these native inhabitants of what is now the North West U.S., but I believe there were 5 or 6 people left, all senile, mentally ill or dying of consumption. The stories are the pathetic last attempt at articulation of a dying race. The subtext to my poems is that the remaining scraps of these people's language could make a memorial to them, and, to some extent, even recreate some of the delight, decency, and sanity of their original way of life if left more or less to its own devices. to be warm a little while nephew grandson to eat food to name cougar That sounds wise to me. The Kalapuya, however, have proved wiser, and more durable, and, oddly enough, putting this book on the web has brought this to my attention. Reports of their extinction have been greatly exagerated. E-mail from a number of Kalapuyans sets me straight on that. To Dream Kalapuya was first published in book form by Truck Press, St. Paul, Minnesota. Copyright © 1977 by Karl Young. Return to Light and Dust Poets. Light and Dust Anthology of Poetry.