The very last day my family and I spent together this holiday season was in Phoenix and entailed a strange mix of emotions ranging from nice, beautiful, artistic, to frustrated and freaking out by nightfall back in a snowy Portland. But hey, it wouldn’t be a proper Christmas without some family drama.
The beauty of that December 29 was that it started with seeing my sister, after working her night shift. She’d been up some 18 hours after a nap’s worth of sleep making sure that people in pain felt better, emergencies were taken care of and patients at her hospital were cared for. We said goodbye to her and went to the Heard Museum for a few hours and it was a really lovely experience. It was there I encountered the art of Harry Fonesca, a native Californian with a lot of heart in his Maidu and Hawaiian heritages and came to explore immigration and creation myths as well later in life.
Finding Fonesca has been fun and while my favorite paintings of his are the 1977 creation myths involving turtles, they are rare and, sadly the internet has not gotten hold of them so I will not show them here. But I do love his Coyote creations: first a male, just Coyote, then Rose, Coyote’s counterpart. I had no idea a few days ago when I saw this for the first time, but Fonesca wrote poems for Coyote as well as drawing him. How beautiful to find an artist who then became his own poet, especially when with my family who have talents beyond what they thought they could do in this life.
Coyote, Coyote, Please Tell Me
Coyote, Coyote, Please tell me
What is a shaman?
A shaman I don’t know
anything about.
I’m a doctor, myself.
When I use medicine,
it’s between me,
my patient,
and the Creation.
Coyote, Coyote, Please tell me
What is power?
It is said that power
is the ability to start
your chainsaw
with one pull.
Coyote, Coyote, Please tell me
What is magic?
Magic is the first taste
of ripe strawberries and
magic is a child dancing
in a summer’s rain.
Coyote, Coyote, Please tell me
Why is Creation?
Creation is because I
went to sleep last night
with a full stomach,
and when I woke up
this morning,
everything was here.
Coyote, Coyote, Please tell me
Who you belong to?
According to the latest
survey, there are certain
persons who, in poetic
or scholarly guise,
have claimed me like
a conqueror’s prize.
Let me just say
once and for all,
just to be done:
Coyote,
he belongs to none.
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