David Moolten

 

RUSHMORE

In memory of the activist, Anna Mae Aquash

 

They mask what they overlook, the bluffs

Around them, the reservations, Wounded Knee,

Legacy's raw and obdurate terrain.

Once there was a woman; not far, 1970s.

Ninety miles and a nation away,

An early spring unveiled her, hard as sculpture,

Slain under months of snow.

                                       Now they've exhumed

Her case, still shaping the truth. Well, it's simple:

There are no human shrines. She drank herself out

Of a smashed marriage, gave breath to songs, some shrill

As Dakota wind, smuggled food through a standoff

With marshals, had a way with children, especially

Her own.

                  One might contrast her unfinished work

With that of Gutzon Borglum, worshipful son

Of immigrants, who slowly carved while strung

From a bosun's seat, defaced Red Cloud's Black Hills

Then at the dedication confessed the land

As stolen. He never rendered the "wild and carefree"

Natives, though he yearned to.

                                                      Some will say who

Knew about the bullet in her head. Some will say

Almost anything, like the FBI whispering

Threats in one ear, bribes in the other,

Who may have used her as an informer

Or hinted that they did.

                                    She wasn't Cary Grant's

Impeccable blond, the government spy

He saves in North by Northwest, dangling

From the monument while a subversive goon grinds

His hand with a shoe. It was Nixon stepping

On everyone's rights, obsessed with sympathizers,

A cinch to badmouth. But what of Lincoln,

She'd have asked, sad bass of the quartet, the one

With a conscience deep in the monolith, hanging

38 Sioux in Mankato because the settlers whooped

For hundreds, his moonlit cheek a sheer drop?

 

Maybe one day a repentant artist

Will idolize Leonard Peltier with granite

In the shadow prison a Bad Lands ridge of pines

Projects at dusk, Russel Means storming Rushmore.

But with Anna, he'll never have a chance.

How does one capture her smile, her daughters

So terribly young? Some people you can't make

Out of stone. Once they're gone, they're gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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