Coboys and Inians

Coboys and Inians

no  dont    dont rub your eyes think youre reading it wrong

its read exactly as its written Coboys and Inians

I wouldnt have imagined it on my own honestly but all I ever need is just a little push in the back

not too rough

if I deem it rough I turn retaliate bad habit  grew up in a city that had a penchant for shoving people around shoving people around if they didnt move fast enough or didnt do what they were told  yesterday 
but thats another story

I struggle to respect people

hell I carry an affirmation with me

I believe it or I wouldnt carry it around with me like a fuckin albatross around my neck

   

Coleridge  Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “God save thee, ancient Mariner /From the fiends, that plague thee thus /Why look’st thou so ? /- With my cross-bow /I shot the ALBATROSS. /Ah. well a-day. What evil looks /Had I from old and young /Instead of the cross, the Albatross /About my neck was hung.”  

mine were the words of a dead Russian poet that I repeat in my head when some lump of indistinguishable shit gets in my face tries my unorthodox patience which often hangs by a thread  I aint perfect but I try to be better better than I was the day before

I visited a Mission

                    part of that inevitable California run-the-table when youve spent enough time in the state and opt into its places of interest

the Missions made up twentyone places of interest in the Golden State  my mind wonders

if you had kids in school they had to memorize their names

I didnt so all I knew was a bunch of them began with San probably a couple with La and that was the extent of my Mexican I know  Spanish but the city in me only knew Mexicans who spoke Mexican like Jews who spoke Jewish or Poles Russians Greeks Dagos no sense messing up a good thing complicating things  Im a simple guy

I visited the Mission in San Miguel  ah got it  San Miguel Arcángel besides the early 19th Century chapel is a graveyard and buried in it are more than two thousand Salinans

it wast a big cemetery  within are also large plots dedicated to families who could afford pricey tall erect marble monuments like in the big city I was from  some dead still had it better than the living 
                                                                                           as I said it wasnt a big 

the yard had a presence  a grief  sorrow  work under a yoke or with an albatross wrapped round your throat you get it

you also get by the size of it that the Salinans didnt get a good shake   God  but not a good shake

I chopped and stacked cordwood so Im a bit suspicious  the only way to fit more than two thousand souls into the ground was dig real deep  and giventheres lotsa shale  knock yourself out   or you stack them in a mass grave

theres a bitterness that invades my mouth when something aint kosher 

aint a good feeling at the Mission

theres a big marker for them

I should have been able to take some comfort from it but that was quickly effaced by a memorial marker  fashioned by two tall broad wood planks set side by side

carved into their faces were the words  sincere I believe  regarding the Natives

carved into the wood they celebrated the Inians

the Inians and Coboys 

one can suppose one hand washes the other

I . . I just turn the other cheek and snicker
 

0201,  Twosday,  18  2. 14