Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation
by Natalie Diaz
Angels don’t come to the reservation.
Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.
Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—
death. And death
eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel
fly through this valley ever.
Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though—
he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical
Indian. Sure he had wings,
jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops,
kids grow like gourds from women’s bellies.
Like I said, no Indian I’ve ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.
Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something—
Nazarene church holds one every December,
organized by Pastor John’s wife. It’s no wonder
Pastor John’s son is the angel—everyone knows angels are white.
Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.
Remember what happened last time
some white god came floating across the ocean?
Truth is, there may be angels, but if there are angels
up there, living on clouds or sitting on thrones across the sea wearing
velvet robes and golden rings, drinking whiskey from silver cups,
we’re better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and
’xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens.
You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to
Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.
Let me begin by saying that although this poem touches on some serious subjects, I always end up smiling when I get to the end. My delight stems from what Diaz has done with the form--a form I love; the pacing, details, and circling around and back to angels is so marvelous I cannot help but smile.
An abecedarian poem is one in which each line begins with a word that starts with a letter in alphabetical order: A, B, C, D, etc. They are fun to write and fun to read. To use this form for a poem that blasts subjugation and oppression is a brave move--it could have been a disaster.
But it is not. Rather, we get a dizzying description of reservation life, from animals to a guy named Gabe who has a lot of kids, from a Christmas pageant put on by a white pastor to symbols of royalty. And throughout are angels--they mean death, they are white, they are no good, and if they return to the reservation, it will be to march the Indians off to someplace else. The immediacy and power of this warning are created by the quick pace of the poem, as if the poet needs to tell us something fast because danger is close, as well as the use of pronouns.
The speaker shows up in line 5, although the colloquial tone/language of the poem establishes a conversational tone (albeit one with authority--that starts in the first line) that suggests a friendly "I". The angels are they--other.
In the penultimate line, the word "you" appears four times. Everything before this has already pulled us into the poem, and this just locks it in, while also specifying the audience to be those who live on reservations. The poem's last word--"us"--again ties together the speaker and the reader, particularly the specific reader.
I do love everything in this poem, including the subtle but pointed reminder of the role white religion has played in the horrifying treatment of Native Americans, but I admit to a favorite description. It is about jailbird, petty criminal Gabe.
"Wherever he stops,
kids grow like gourds from women’s bellies."
Perfection.
This poem can be found many places. I have it in Natalie Diaz's 2012 book, When My Brother Was an Aztec, published by Copper Canyon Press.