Begging everyone's indulgence -- but last night, I received an email from Alex, who let me know when "INDIGENOUS," my forthcoming book from Able Muse Press, will be published.
It led me to go back to re-read my manuscript, and I was reminded of this poem in the book, which I wrote years ago, putting into poetry this exact parallel, and was trying to explain to Ann, further up in the thread -- of being both one hundred percent Indian, while one hundred percent white.
The book is about my childhood, growing up raised by my Native American Indian maternal-grandfather's family, our family lore, as well as including poems regarding -- on the other side of my Native heritage -- my father's contributions to my life from an Indian perspective etc., etc. Poems about experiences with my Indian friends, growing up. Poems about Oklahoma, Indian country. My experience, being in a "mixed marriage" with my husband.
Several poems, indeed, confront the reality of being not only mixed-blood, bi-racial, but a combination of two groups who existed in deadly warfare with each other, deadly enemies. What it is like to inherit such baggage.
I don't normally do things like this, but since it pertains directly to a question which was specifically posed to me, and also, involves Alex and the press, intertwined with poetry, it seems okay to do this.
Half-breed
by Jennifer Reeser
Both sides accepted me, both sides denied.
Each side has told me truth, while each has lied.
Unite two liquids in a cup of clay,
their properties do not congeal and stay.
No more is it half-water and half-wine,
but each absorbs the other, to combine.
Its drops are wine and water, through and through,
but yet dissimilar, completely new.
My blood -- all-Indian while still all white--
mixes and balances, a dual birthright.
I am your bridge. I am, as well, your breach.
Hear me, and heal -- I'm none of you, and each.
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