John Freeman

A native and long-time resident of Mississippi, John Freeman now lives in Harvey, Louisiana, where he is a retired teacher. His poetry has appeared in Arkansas Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, The MacGuffin, Roanoke Review, and Xavier Review. He has published three books of poetry, the most recent In the Place of Singing (Louisiana Literature Press, 2005). He is currently poetry editor of The Magnolia Quarterly.

In the Place of Singing

On this hill in Attala County the grass has yellowed. A fall wind
ruffles through folds of brush and billowing silver maples,
      robes of a council
taking their seats. The floating hawk is my witness, and the
      gray squirrel
perched still as carved wood on oak limb.

I’ve come alone, yearning to peer into one more of the many
faces of God. I’ve come at dusk because the alikchis’ chants to
      the sun
are fading into the far edge of the sky. Only handfuls remain
among my apokni’s people who remember the name of Hushtali.

In a shallow trench I dug on the hilltop, in the last light of the
      sun
I kindle His flames and summon my other ancestors,
the Chahtah Okla, to join me. In the twilight they gather
around me, though I wonder what they think of my pale skin.

They sing to me in the gloaming cries of foxes and owls,
oak leaves in the rising wind like rattles on dancing feet.
In the fire’s heat I rise to join them. My face runs with sweat.
Offering my voice, I sway to an alepa’s beat in my pulse:

Sing with me, my other people, teach
the words that praise Hushtali. Can you see
the embers’ redness flare in my heart? Reach
out, my other people, sing with me.

attala – place of singing
okla – people, or tribe, used as a collective noun
Hushtali – God. He is considered to be the sun, and he appears on earth in the form of fire. Any occurrence of the fire, including man-made, is a theophany.
alepa – drum

Nanih Waiya in March

To the people of my grandfather’s mother
(dark girl from Connehatta
no one remembers),
this shrunken knoll was the holiest ground.
In this empty month of beginnings,
no Choctaws have come here today—

only white faces, cameras flashing,
picnics spread around the slope,
kites infesting the wind.
I fear the Spirit of this place—
ghosts swarm like wasps whose nest has been disturbed.
I am na hollo, can never be Chahtah,
but apokni, I feel your shadow
weave around my shoulders like a robe
and kindle my veins with their few drops
of the issish hanta.

Out of this swollen mound
her people arose. The hard wind
scrapes my face like a flint.
From an oak’s bare branch a red kestrel leaps
into the wind’s billows where eddies labor
from wingbeats like shudders that ripple
on water churned by a stone.
It rises, splits the gray placenta of air
with the screech of the newborn.

Nanih Waiya, now a state park in rural Winston Country, Mississippi, is according to legend the birthplace of the Choctaws. It is not know whether the Choctaws, or an earlier tribe, built the mound. na hollo – a white person, often used derogatively The shadow was considered the visible aspect of a person’s spirit. issish hanta – sacred blood

Reprinted by permission of Louisiana Literature Press from In the Place of Singing by John Freeman. Copyright John Freeman 2005.
 

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