the streets

I got up and drove maybe three hours to attend a meeting, it was
about transportation planning along the Salt Lake Valley, somewhere in
the midst of the valley there are some Indian scrip lands, these lands
were given to Indians before there were allotments and reservations,
dating way back to the 1840's. Well someone is thinking about building
a road and called a scoping meeting to talk about the impacts it would
have. There were peiople from the state, government, EPA, Corps of
Engineers, city planners, convservation and wilderness protection
societies, LIke the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. The meeting was
such that alot of folks were there with white linen shirts, prim and
proper in their attire. It was in a way a domonstration in the art of
word form, how to say something in a way that made one think these
guys are professionals in their work, if you couldn't tell by the way
they looked they said it.

I finished the meeting and went to look for someone, there is a park,
they call it the Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City, it is near the
downtown area on the west side. It is green, with tall cottonwood
trees, it is allegedly where the Mormon Pioneers first camped when
they came into the Salt Lake Valley. Now it is a park and there are
alot of people around there, mainly poor people.


I got a call to go and find someone, a girl from home who took off and
was living on the streets, so I went to the park to take a look
around. I took a few pieces of chicken with me, and found that this
park has rez dogs, a few followed me around they smelled the chicken,
so I ended up giving into them and it was gone.


IN noticed there were tall old fashioned turn of the century lamps,
something like you see in tose movies about Jake the Ripper in old
England, tall dark towering lights, cast iron, at the base of these
lamps on four sides is the figure of a cigar store Indian. Past these
lamp posts are the green lawns of the park and lots of old trees.
Laying around these trees I found a few Indian folks, they were from
all over, not just them but some other people of color as well,
Mexicans, Blacks and some Whites. I found myself walking among them
and saw some people who looked like peiople I knew from the streets.
The Skins there spoke to me in Navajo, asking my clan relationship and
where I was from. They rold me where they were from and I asked about
Charlene, the girl I was looking for from home, she isn't exactly a
girl but a mother who took off and left her kids with family and
somehow ended up in Salt Lake City living on the streets.


I notice the people I spoke with looked at m directly in the eye,
curious as to why I was looking for her and wanting to help out, some
said we will put the work out to find her. They said at noon, the
shelter feeds everybody and to be hang around to see if she should up.
A few of them knew of her and said she had been around. I walked
around the park to see if I could find her.


I saw an Indian woman swinging on the childrens swings, and she was
just like a child swinging up high and gonig back and forth, reaching
her toes to the sky. She swung for a long time. I thought to talk to
her, but she seemed to be thinking about something, her long brown
hair just flowed with the swing going back and forth. People would
walk by and look at her, wondering why she was there like I was. After
a while when I was coming back from across the park, I saw her and
could see she was walking with crutches, her body movements were jerky
and then I could see she had muscular distrophy. Earlier as I watched
her I wondered about how Indians thrive in the city, they get by and
know each other, moving from the forest, mesas and plains to the city
sidewalks. There are invisible it seems, I saw a small child playing
with his parents and they were just enjoying the sunshine and shade of
the trees, drinking nothing but water from a old coke bottle and
sharing a loaf of bread, a simple pleasure. This is what I saw and
wondered about where they came from to get here.


Anyway I am still looking for this girl from home and will be here
through the night checking around for her, so it goes on the streets
of Salt Lake City.


Rustywire