. . . the beauties of travel are due to the strange hours we keep to see them. —William Carlos Williams 1. INTHEWINTEROF*69 ] wenty years ago my wife and I were traveling to visit my sister in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. Crossing Guatemala by bus, I met a poet from Nicaragua. We discovered a shared vision about the work of poets. “I go to the schools and perform the poems of Ruben Dario and the ancient Indios. I also dance my own poems.” He showed me a tattered brochure with him pictured in an art nouveau Aztec costume. “I call my style NicaTolteca. Iwrite about the days before anger and despair.” “Were there ever such times?” I asked. “That is the job we poets have.” “To write about anger?” He smiled, pointing out the window at the people walking down the lane between dark green coffee bushes under the overhang of hardwood trees. “I go to the villages and help people imagine a better world.” I told him I’d just come from a poetry event in the Cascades with a group of Native American poets. “We use fasting and sweat bathing to revive the culture.” “Then we are working for the same thing!” he said, sharing his poems with me,' telling me how dangerous it was to confront Somoza. “I also read in El Salvador and Honduras, but I have to do what I can against the dictator. YouNorth Americans support him, you know.”. “We are both working to develop cultures,” I said. “Things will change.” We were young and mistook energy for power. “Yes,” my intense friend agreed. “Someday we poets will succeed and you can join me in Nicaragua. We will perform together.” He slipped off the bus before we entered Nicaragua. “I will find my own way in!” He walked to the side of the road, his dufflebag under his arm. I often pictured him, his work sharpened by the years, performing in some dusty school, then slipping out the back while the clumsy Guardia stumbled in the front door. Guillermo Martinez, the mayor of Jalapa. 20 Clinton St. Dec. ’89-Jan. ’90 2. NORTHEAST TO NICARAGUA O landing on the stage of Managua’s k J Baptist College, I sang for Daniel Ortega and all of Nicaragua. Of course, I wasn’t aware of what I was doing, which is usually best. Exhausted, stinky, filthy, hungry, I’d been in Nicaragua only six hours, most of that time spent avoiding potholes and hitchhikers. A 6,000 mil.e pilgrimage was nearing completion, carrying 30,000 pounds of material aid from Port Townsend, Washington to the village of Jalapa, in Nicaragua’s northern finger, hard up against Honduras. Three months before, the Port Townsend-Jalapa Sister City program had invited Tne to ferry south a secondhand Mercedes- Benz box truck they purchased to give to their Nicaraguan cohorts. It was filled with a 3,000 pound water system generator, 300 boxes of school and medical supplies, and canvas hospital bags for a sewing co-op. Dozens of bicycles to be used by literacy workers intertwined in back. We were to join the Pastors for Peace convoy of 27 trucks carrying 56 souls on the long, lumbering drive through Mexico and most Central America. of Months earlier, Doug Milholland, an organizer in Port Townsend, stood before the huge vessel his group’s efforts had obtained. He mused softly, “It sure would be great to have a mural on the side of that truck.” Immediately, I envisioned a traveling statement. “I’ll draw the two holy women, the salmon lady, Skookum Kloochman, who gave her life to become the five nations of the salmon people, and Xilonen, the corn goddess who still dies yearly to be reborn as maize in contemporary Nicaraguan ‘post-Indian’ festivals. They face each other across a bridge of blessings, extending their corn and salmon to each other. Let’s call it a Bridge of Poems. An exchange of equals.” Doug was game to try. Several weeks later, after local artists were consulted, group consensus was achieved and I stood on scaffolding to draw the outline for the mural. By the time it was finished, many painters had added their touches. On July 15, my co-driver, Greg Lalish, picked me up in Tacoma. We first drove northeast across Washington to reach the leg of the convoy starting from Montana. Parking Oso Ruidoso—Noisy Bear—on the lower slopes of a Spokane street, we walked up an overgrown trail A s for me, I’m getting some friends together to build this thought—A BRIDGE OF POEMS lifting us like the long wing lifts the heavy bird from its breaking branch. Our blueprint is a glance at someone else’s paradise. Our heavy equipment is what we hear when our hearts are light. Between our nation and the nation of dreamers to the south, a poem will make the journey nothing else will dare, and its forgiveness is in its destination. to a dark and creaky mansion. The woman answering the door, in her Dutch braids and Himalayan robe, noted our look of confusion. “You don’t know where you are come? This is the Tibetan Buddhist practise center. Welcome. 1am Lama Inge.”Walking past the gongs and drums, it became clear that ours was not to be your average pilgrimage. 3.100 DRUMMERS FOR THE BRIDGE ZTolding the drum over my head, I started the beat and one hundred drummers joined me. Ben George took the drum next, leaning into a Puyallup tribal song as if it were a blues chant. Later, Diane Chew rocked out on the piano. For hours, we raised money for the trip. When’funding for summer classes at the ghetto school where I teach was cut, I made a commitment to go. The Port Townsend Sister City group had spent years obtaining the many thousands of dollars needed to realize their work. I had only a few months to find the cash for my own expenses. U.S. government actions in Central America had made the past 9 years an angry, frustrating time for me and many Americans. Driving the truck seemed like a wonderful opportunity to do something helpful. The Bridge of Poems grew as the core of my preparation. Poetry, for me, is a journey to the roots of life. I read that the Nicaraguans re- pected the power of poetics profoundly. When I talked to Puget Sound poets about building a poetry connection, they shared my enthusiasm. “1’1 send you something. Does it have to be political?” friends would question. “Whatever ypu feel. I want to engineer BRIDGE OF Oso Ruidoso crossing into Latin America. & J Clinton St. Dec. ’89-Jan. ’90 B ar ba ra L am bthe idea as a simple one. Then we’ll see where it takes us.” My wife was less than happy to see me go. She would be alone for nearly three months. Still, she supported the Bridge. She had been with me in Africa and on the tribal reservations in the States, when I had used poetry as a way of visioning growth and change. She was worried about how I would deal with the hardships of such unrelenting travel, as I had only recently recovered from my second cancer surgery. As the benefit performance ended, I read: As for me, I am getting some friends together to build this thought—A BRIDGE OF POEMS lifting us like the long wing lifts the heavy bird from its breaking branch. Our blueprint is a glance at someone else’s paradise. Our heavy equipment is what we hear when our hearts are light. Between our nation and the nation of dreamers to the south, a poem will make the journey nothing else will dare, and its forgiveness is in its destination. 4. THE RED THREAD rhat first night, in Spokane, we received the blessings of the practitioners as Lama Inge and her fellow priest, a rotund, white-bearded ex-trucker, exshaman, led the tantric session. Greg and I prayed with them, feeling a little over our heads. Lama Inge delivered a Buddhist homily about how pride and anger were central to much of tribal spirituality. I began to argue with her, based on my own experience with Native American holiness. Then I understood; I didn’t come on this trip to argue but to learn. The Buddhist’s openness felt as refreshing as a bath in a mountain spring. When Lama Inge asked what Iwanted for the journey, I said healing. I relaxed into the chant the practitioner circle sang for me. The Lama then asked me what kind of healing Iwanted. I hesitated, then surged ahead as if I were still chanting. “I have cancer, tumors in my abdomen. Iwant to make this journey in good health.” She looked at me, seeming to be lost in thought. The next morning, Lama Inge said, “You have many things to heal. This journey will be purifying. I will bless your paths. Sit by the drums.” She carefully knotted special red threads around our necks. “Wear these on your travels. If you get into any kind of troubles down the road, just pull on these cords and help will come.” “Who are we calling on for help?” “The Dakini, Red Tara or Mary, Mother of Christ. It really doesn’t matter. They’re one and the same.” We crept out during early morning chants, to the smiles of the practitioners, put on our shoes and drove toward Montana. 5. MIGHTY BUFFALO IN MISSOULA 117 e drove through the rain up and ” over Lookout Pass, singing scat choruses. Greg is a carpenter and former geologist, unwilling to accede to Exxon’s demands. He lives on a deer-haunted island in Puget Sound, fixing houses. For a time he had been a potter, playing with the earth. His sense of humor kept us as centered as clay on a wheel. We bopped happily into a Missoula church for our appointment with the loNorthwest-Nicaragua Sister Cities Arcata, (CA)/Camoapa (707) 822-3442 Moscow (ID)/Villa Carlos Fonseca (208) 882-1009 Helena(MT)/Rivas (406) 458-9686 Missoula/Rivas (406) 728-0272 Albany(OR)/Chichigalpa (503) 967-7595 Portland/Corinto (503) 233-5181 Bainbridge (WA)/Ometepe (206) 842-8148 Jalapa/Port Townsend (206) 385-6525 Seattle/Managua (206) 329-2974 Spokane/Tipitapa (508) 534-1668 Thurston/Santo Tonias (206) 754-6765 cal peace groups. Some 30 folks sang in gloomy, well-intentioned tones: feed the poor, house the homeless. Had we stumbled upon the funeral of high plains liberalism? After several discourses on U.S. involvement in Central America, 1 was asked to say a few words about the Port Townsend truck. I felt an oppressive righteousness in the air. To clear it I had to sing. Years ago, working as an Indian programs bureaucrat, I wrote a song about survival. Driving through a NewMexican blizzard, with too little gas and no spare tire, I composed the “Buffalo Song.” He’s the bee-bah-booh-bah buffalo! look at him stompin’, look at him go! He’s got the secret that we've got to know, the mighty, mighty, mighty, mighty buffalo! As I rocked out, half the audience recoiled in shock. The other half leaned forward to catch the words. Afterward, standing outside in the rain, I was given the first road poem, “A Requiem for Chico Mendez,” by Missoula freelance writer Greg Bechle. Rain clouds are born on this day With joy the trees breathe them. With joy, the blue curve of space holds them. . . . 6. THE RIVERS COME TOGETHER And So Do We July 18-20 4 t the great cathedral of Helena we * * spoke from the high basalt steps. Methodist minister Bob Holmes and his Helena Handbasket choir sang Zulu choral music. Bob was our convoy speaker all the way down the inland passage, with facts at his fingertips and a voice husky with integrity. We heard his patented rouser speech two or three times a day. Eventually we were correcting him if he missed a line. Ann Neelon was using poetry in a local rehabilitation program. She gave me two fine pieces she had composed on her recent Witness for Peace travels to the Nicaraguan war areas: Children scramble up into the bombed truck and wave at us enthusiastically, but from a distance, like entertainers in a parade. Their shyness lasts five minutes, enough time for Adelia to give us the details of the attack: it was in broad daylight, four died and eleven were wounded running up a hill from the school. . . If more of us die, the world will not be able to forget us!
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