Native Soul
by Roy Conboy
Native soul is buried
beneath generations of forget.
“They’re the drunks
that sleep by the river,”
my uncle said –
“That’s not us.”
But river sang in my bones,
stronger than his bitter,
stronger even than street.
Song of the wrinkles
on my abuela’s face,
the wrinkles in her dreams.
At ending she slept
in mechanical bed,
tangled in tubes,
hair never gray,
lips always moving,
time past deluding.
I touched her skin’s story
when others fled,
felt heat in the furrow,
memory in facial ravine.
Her eyes sparked,
hand dragged me back.
“Who are you?”
she cried,
voice cracking
and shrieking.
“Where is the river,
the night sky?”
Now in daylight
I suit up for tender,
drive asphalt torrent,
ride unending wireless,
never resting
from the getting.
“Who are you?”
she cries.
The corporate entangle
my secret desires
with interface and link,
like rats in the wall
mining what is mine
as if I were asleep.
“Where is the river,
the night sky?”
But under stars I run free,
paced by crow above
and wind below,
dream riverbed whispering.
“Who are you?”
she cries.
Now in shadow,
now silhouetted by stars,
Abuela walks
that shore again.
“Where is the river,
the night sky?”
Her eyes spark
and turn to me,
hand grips mine,
drags back in time.
“Who are you?”
she cries.
We sing power
together on water,
not shamed or drunk,
not gray or forgetting –
rivers by the river,
running.
Roy Conboy is a Latino/Irish/Indigenous writer and teacher whose poetic plays have been seen in the struggling black boxes on the edges of the mainstream theatre in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Antonio, Denver, and more; and whose musical plays for young people have toured extensively in California. His poetry has been seen in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Orphic Lute, Third Estate’s Quaranzine, and Freshwater Literary Journal. His poetic radio drama Hue can be heard online at Barewire Theatre Company. He recently retired from 35 years of teaching, including three decades as the head of the San Francisco State University playwrighting program, where he created multiple programs that gave thousands of students a place to find and raise their voices.