Blood Memory
Awcomon How
coud one not be attracted to a title like that it screams from its spine bold white letters
on a black jacket
a book about buffalo
reading yesterday he learned that Plain
Indians had pictorial calendars painted on buffalo skin to document memorable
things that happened that year
in 1833 only one image THE YEAR THE STARS FELL
on 13 November was the largest recorded meteor
shower an estimated 72,000 per hour
likely
a blood memory stored in everyone who witnessed it
from this text he plucked a quote as he
did a day earlier Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Prayers are humble answers to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all
we can offer and return to the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be
present at the constant unfolding of time.”
he plucked
from John James Audubon who in 1843 confessed to killing four buffalo and
taking only their tongues
“What a terrible destruction of life, as
it were for nothing, or next to it.”
and plucked from the prophet Brigham Young “If we do not slay when we do not need, when we
will need we cannot slay.”
what these quotes have conferred to his blood its memory
is that human beings are wastrels
every day he tries not to be
1509, Tuesday,
13 1. 26
1212, Wednesday,
14 1. 26