Kevin Doesn't use his Native Name

"This house is a good idea"

I hear the swaying man in a red shirt

"I support the loggin, ya know"

His eyes poised for my reaction

"but maybe I'd like an earth house, like this"

"I think the loggin is good for the people

maybe this is, too"

He pulls a cigarette from his pocket

lights it with trembling hands

"I don't worship no graven images" he says, watching the air

his voice creating images as he speaks

"I remember the masks, huge black wood carvings

with red that came alive when they put them on

and they move...dancing, pounding, singing

It amazed me as a boy, scared me

the cloaks they wore, buttons and stitched as tho alive

images were unnatural

made me shake in my shoes

my wife and I went to a potlatch last year

we got up and ran out

half way through

It's all evil, ya know"

A cloudy look, his brow furrows

I see him remember why

he swells with a fear

so large he drinks himself

into the soft rocking motion of a fishing skiff

he stumbles and steadies himself

against the looming earth wall

cigarette burns close to his fingertips

like a storyteller he drones on

going to church every Sunday, boasting his rejection

of 10,000 years of ancient spiritualtiy

all evil now

having surrendered to the lord he worships

not dancing life

but the dead mans image, hanging

his words a reminder

of a religious hammer, beating

a small native child

Kevin throws the smouldering

butt on the ground

grinds a toe into the soil

"same dirt that built this house"

he mumbles and shuffles away

of

so