FIRST GENERATION

 

Our grandparents sent long, descriptive letters from across the ocean, while we recited the pledge of allegiance to a flag of forty-eight stars in a one-room schoolhouse, the familiar language of home left at the door, along with the breath-damp wool of scarves and mittens in winter. I am an American now, we were made to recite again and again, and to write it in our notebooks until it became as familiar as our own names, the names which others could not or would not pronounce correctly, and could alter with the stroke of a pen. Our prayers, too, were in English, but only when spoken out loud. Our parents, aunts, and uncles braided the old language with the new, sometimes losing track, beginning again, sometimes inventing a new word where no other could be found. But our silence, in endless variations, was easily understood, neither awkward nor American. It sat as easily as a hammock stretched between two pines, swaying gently from east to west, responsive to the slightest breeze.

MY GRANDFATHER'S DAY BOOK

 

Worn and dappled with age, it creaks slightly upon opening, must in its creases, a small narrow door leading immediately into the past. The winding blue script within -- all of it in Finnish -- I can only translate in part, a reminder that language, like memory, can only take us so far. What is left out of this ledger -- this list of dates, facts, and figures -- must write its own story elsewhere. There is no listing for the cost of whiskey and cigarettes, no mention of the son drowned on the other side of the world, nor the wife who followed soon after, no price mentioned for the arsenic that took her. The margins are narrow. There is room only for what he is willing to record, that which makes sense and can be easily measured. I don't know where my own days stand, so many squandered with laziness, the stubborn refusal of youth, so many unaccounted for. I know only that their shadow grows long, no matter which direction I stand. If I am found lacking, grandfather, let these words be a start, let my debt be paid in the telling.

ODE TO MESABA CO-OP PARK

 

Back then, there were places where our feet

could not freely walk, where our bodies

could not stand without standing apart from those

some would deem polite society,

our eyes and broken speech giving us away,

patched overalls with a tie on Sunday mornings.

They put up signs: No Indians or Finns Allowed.

They called us Reds, Commies, Jackpine Savages,

called us Barbarians, wearing only our flesh

from sauna to lake shore, steam rising like a thousand

unsettled ghosts, speaking a language full of

closed doors to outsiders, the clicks and

clacks of birds and fallen branches.

Some of us still believed in God, though our sin

was having dared to question the ruling class, dared --

like young Twist -- to humbly ask for more.

But we made our spaces sacred through sweat.

We built a floor on which to dance,

a schoolhouse so our children could learn,

placed our chairs up in the trees, high enough to see

the black sedans of federal agents below,

our minds drifting with the untethered clouds.

Back then, we were dangerous, we were other,

reluctant revolutionaries in this new land,

wanting only to live our quiet working lives.

But sometimes the rabble needs to be roused,

the earth itself shaken from slumber,

the forest called to by name until it answers

in kind, until it invites you as family, and as friend,

its open door leading you gently further in.

MY DAUGHTER SPEAKS OF BIRDS

 

My daughter speaks of birds, speaks in wonder

of their sing-song call and response,

their endless reserve of resilience and guile

in the face of all manner of adversity,

the sudden and startling grace of their flight,

which, after all this time, continues to

amaze those of us standing

flat-footed on the earth below.

She asks which bird I might come back as

after I have departed from this life,

and how she will know it's me.

"Fly close to me three times," she suggests,

"then give out one call." This seems

a reasonable request, provided my new

bird-self can remember the details.

Our ancestors, after all, believed that

the soul was carried in, and away,

on the wings of the sielulintu,

that the whole of earth and sky were formed

from the broken shell of a fallen egg.

We settle, for now, upon a common jay,

brightly handsome but unassuming,

vigilant in watching over its family, never

straying far from its wooded home.

We have, I hope, the better part of this life

to draw our fragile maps,

perfect our signals, our language

of mutual understanding.

THE COUNTY LINE

 

(Tyyne Natus, 1906-1953)

Having waded through the green waves of ditch grass

and wildflowers, bramble grown nearly waist-high,

the prickly stems of young strawberries

and the private cosmology of gnats, we arrive

like casual explorers to examine the broken foundation,

hidden from view off the highway, of what once was

The County Line Bar, place where my grandparents --

only yesterday it seems -- served up drinks

to the always thirsty locals and those passing through,

and no doubt consumed as much as they sold.

Who's to say that these ruins are not sacred,

or their ghosts worthy of remembrance?

Just over there, my grandmother stood for what has

become my favorite photograph of her, framed

on either side by my grandfather and two regulars,

laughing, girlish and seemingly without care,

her small dog held close against her, one cloud of breath,

all but invisible, hovering in the crisp winter air.

This is how I want to remember her, her smile

like a sudden flash of daylight, the gold in her hair

shining, even in black-and-white -- before the loss

of a son on the other side of the world tore

something in her irreparably, before the alcohol bruised

and the weight of her days became too much.

I need to remember this moment, if only for myself,

to remember that she knew joy upon this earth,

the ease and gentleness of common things,

that she loved and was called beloved in return.

MY FATHER FLYING ABOVE REYKJAVIK

 

It's sometimes hard to imagine my father's face,

even when looking at an old photograph.

In my mind's eye, he is always turning away,

as he is in this moment, maneuvering through the clear

arctic air 10,000 feet above the city of Reykjavik,

as far removed from the fields of Aitkin, Minnesota

as his imagination would have carried him.

I can see the smooth, unlined flesh of his neck

peeking between his military cut and Air Force collar,

can see the blue-green lights of the control panel

blinking like stars, now closer, nor farther.

This would be long before he met my mother,

before he left us, and those families which came before.

This is, you might say, a test run for leaving.

He is an apt pupil, willing to put in the long hours.

Does he spare a thought then for his older brother,

my uncle Leo, drowned, so very handsome at

the foot of Mount Fuji, his uniform weighing him down,

a birthday card written out to his sister floating

on the silent surface like a forgotten map?

Or does he think only of this -- the acceleration

and ascension, the world falling away below,

everything making more sense from this distance?

The sky trails behind him like a new signature.

He may never come down again.

MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER AT 75

 

In the photo, grown cracked and distant

with age, my great-grandmother Kustaavas is seated

outdoors, her plain dress dignified, unadorned,

a large birthday cake balanced on her lap.

Her face, remarkably unlined, looks on, quizzically,

head tilted slightly to one side, a thin glimmer

of a smile shining forth through shadow.

She is centered perfectly in the frame,

as she was undoubtedly in life, yet clearly seems

unaccustomed to such a fuss being made.

In the lower left, the back tire of a Model-T

casts its lengthening shadow, a tangible bridge

stretching from one century to the next;

while further off to the right, a milk pale stands

as a reminder that this life is a life of work,

its chores never finished, and that cows, chickens,

and children pay little heed to the sabbath.

But in this moment, at least, she appears content

with it all, the moment of stillness well earned.

In the next, she will draw her breath in deeply,

blow the candles out like so many sparks

of light in the night sky, out past the camera's

shuttered lens, beyond her own imagining,

far enough to find us here, still in need of such light.

Send more, Isoäiti, send more.

ERRAND

 

My mother had already broken the eggs,

measured out the bleached white flour, before

realizing that we were out of sugar.

Which is how I found myself -- a child of seven,

hesitant to speak or approach anyone -- standing

at the rusty screened door of my grandfather's

cabin with instructions to borrow a cup.

No one had mentioned this stranger before,

released from prison to die in his own way,

away from others, like any mortally wounded animal

will do, absence being the last and only

dignity most of us can summon.

No one had warned me of the skeletal visage

which emerged, hairless and scowling,

watery blue eyes sinking deep beneath the frames

of his black horn-rimmed glasses.

I looked down, then away. I stammered out

my small request, met merely with a cold, inscrutable

glance, bearing little or no curiosity as to my

existence, the grandson who happened to share

his date of birth, letting fall only a kind of

mumble-grunt meant to convey a simple No,

and a not-so-gentle closing of the door.

Only decades later did I understand why

my mother refused to go herself,

or that the instinctual, visceral fear which I felt

was, in fact, justified. But for now, I was

content enough simply to be walking away,

unconcerned with the minor failure of my mission,

while the old man receded into the confines

of self, offering only the slow certainty

of his departure, a bitter shadow lengthening,

imperceptible, like blood seeping out

from beneath our feet.

THE FAWN

 

Walking to work through the half-dark soot of early morning, chemicals still clinging to the damp air, I am startled by the motionless gaze of a young deer, peering through the cemetery's black iron fence, solitary, unimpressed and unafraid by my presence. White mist, like the small splashes along her ribs, hovers around her. For the past two nights, whole blocks of this street have gone up in flames, set off by protestors or outside agitators, blackened brick and the empty easels of storefronts now waiting for whatever sunlight can break through. And on the opposite side of the street, this thin-legged beauty nibbles calmly at the grass and flowers, as if saying plainly, "This land was here long before you and your dead arrived." Having satisfied her belly and curiosity, she is gone seemingly in the flash of a single leap, an agility reserved for the eternally hunted. While I continue on, the interloper in this scene, my own awkward frame lumbering along, moving further and further out of view.

THE SOCIALIST OPERA HOUSE

 

It's long gone now, the place where the working class Finns met to raise their banners and sing the songs of labor, to act upon the stage a world that made a bit more sense, taught the lessons not yet learned. Gone now the farmers with broken English and missing fingers, the rebel girls and rabble rousers, the miners who shed their blood for a day's pay and a day of rest in this land of the free. Gone now, one dream swallowed by another when no one was looking. Though the bones of the building remain, housing yet another office, yet another bank. But the stage is still there, hollow, and long unused, holding close its secrets in dusty curtain folds and boards. The old songs are still there for any voice to lift again. The prop ship still hangs in the dust of darkened rafters, white sails torn and frayed, ready to set sail for a paradise, real or imagined, so very far from here.

ALL THE LOVE WE LAY CLAIM TO

 

My great-grandfather Juho leans forward slightly

in his chair, as though about to speak

or to reach out his hand one last time

to his beloved, at rest in the casket beside him,

its doorway already covered in handfuls of flowers

and soil, heavy and damp, the solemn faces

of men in the background looking on, weary,

their funeral suits and ties virtually interchangeable.

But the mourner up front wears his work shirt

for this, the hardest labor he has endured

in a lifetime of work, his hands having carved

long into the night a seemingly endless array of roses

and filigree into the wood, as he had once carved

into the marriage bed, and the children's cribs,

hands that look suddenly exposed and empty,

lingering like uncertain birds too long into winter.

Could he have imagined this moment when he arrived

from that other world, with neither currency

nor language, to stake his claim and break this

ground open like a sacred book of secrets?

He must have known, without ever having to say,

that the earth we till must be fed in return,

and all the love we lay claim to must be met equally

with grief, solid as the ground on which we stand.

This, it seems, is the only bargain we are offered,

our baffled silence continually interpreted as assent.

AT THE NATURALIZATION CEREMONY

 

The families begin arriving early, the men in freshly

pressed suits, pocket squares, the women in bold patterned

dresses and colors that defy the gray drizzling skies,

their faces without exception beaming with light,

young children at their sides looking up,

knowing this day to be something extraordinary.

"There are people who live here who hate this country,"

the young woman from Colombia explains

to a local newscaster, shaking her head, "but to us,

this is still The Promised Land. It's everything."

I can't help but think of my own ancestors, who, too,

arrived with nothing, learned to speak this strange, unruly

language, drive cars, fight this nation's many wars.

It's hard to imagine my steely-eyed great-grandfather,

never caught smiling in a photo, wearing a face of

such unabashed joy. But what do I know of another's heart?

I know only this moment, this day, this swell of pride

as these new citizens make their way up Kellogg Boulevard,

their small flags waving in the chilly damp air.

It is as though a hundred or more makeshift boats were

setting out, each on a separate but similar course.

Even when they have all but vanished from view,

their voices can still be heard singing, laughing,

proclaiming -- so many different dialects, different

songs, so many different ways to say Home.

TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS AT FUNERALS

 

It was, my cousin reminds me, once quite common for one family member or another to snap a photograph of their loved one in final repose, a keepsake to be placed among the golden locks of hair, the bronzed baby shoes, and that tiny bracelet that somehow fit on your grandmother's wrist. They would not have minded, we would like to imagine, going as they were before the Maker in their Sunday finest, faces freshly painted and powdered, sunken cheeks glowing rosy once again. In childhood, those images never failed to startle, while thumbing the thick pages of the family album -- the scene shifting suddenly from kids laughing through the candlelit glow of birthday cake, or your mother holding your sister next to a dog whose name no one can recall, to a waxen, expressionless face peering above a casket's satin pillows, its exterior dark and final. It seemed ghoulish, and perhaps selfish, the need for that one final image of one who could neither smile nor offer consent. But perhaps such clinging is not unreasonable. Perhaps I am no different, telling this to you, conjuring with words the unreliable visages of the past, endlessly attempting to name and reclaim a part of the world that has long since departed.

FINNISH FUNERAL, AITKIN, MINNESOTA (1939)

 

It's impossible to know who is behind

the camera's noisy shutter, capturing these

mourners gathered beneath a haze

of summer sun, in somber black and gray,

gazing, without exception, at the dry ground.

Not so unusual, perhaps, for a people

known for their stoicism, for not making such

a fuss about this life, whose language has

many words to describe the existential weight

of snow and ice, but lacks any future tense.

The pallbearers stand on the back of the flatbed,

the hand-carved coffin between them,

men long accustomed to labor, not quite

prepared for this task, their faces shadowed

by grief, hands held close to their bodies,

as if already clutching at bits of earth.

My father is the baby here, knowing only

his own hunger, memorizing each face,

the sound of their voices, each particular touch,

while my mother, many miles away, has not

yet opened her blue eyes to this world.

My great-grandmother is about to move,

slowly, just outside of the picture frame,

becoming, seemingly overnight, part of what

we call history, that lengthening shadow

we each carry, yet never quite manage to catch,

that which shows no sign of stopping

for us, or even of slowing down.

WE ARE STILL HERE

 

We are still here, do you understand,

standing amidst the mountains

of rubble where our children now play,

their faces reflected in the shattered glass

of storefronts and depots, the stagnant

water filling in the tracks behind you.

We have scorched the earth to ash

in order to welcome you, burned down

the humble homes our fathers built

so that you may not know their comfort.

There will be no bed for you here,

no rooms for you to enter, not a single

floorboard for you to walk upon.

For we are still here, do you understand,

singing the old songs and the new,

whistling past the graveyards you have

built as swiftly as we can fill them.

We have, you will see, made room there

for you. We are not uncivilized.

We give you seeds to fill your pockets.

We build statues of you in the snow.

We stand, you will come to know,

as the deep forest stands, unyielding,

breathing in the entirety of sky at once.

We are still here, as even you can plainly see.

We will continue to be here until not

a single blade of grass remains,

nor a single mayfly buzzing in flight,

nothing but the breath that breathes life

into these words, however simple,

upon which we will stand, beginning anew.

THE BUGGY

 

You won't remember now being quite

so small, combing that long stretch of Carolina

sand for rocks, shells, anything shining,

the ocean insistently whispering its secret

language, untranslatable upon land.

Nor will you recall the wheels of your stroller

edging closer and closer to the waves,

so slowly that none of us took notice,

none but that stout Eastern European woman

in head scarf, waving her thick arms,

shouting in alarm, "The buggy! The buggy!'

For one flashing moment, my heart leapt

like a startled fish, believing she might actually

be right, that you might be spirited away

by the unforgiving Atlantic, to Scotland

or Wales, those fabled white cliffs of Dover,

closer to your family's ancestral home

but further from the ones who love you here.

But, of course, you were right there

when we turned to look, your beach hat

shielding your eyes, your chubby legs

just beginning to learn what they're for,

ready, soon enough, to carry you anywhere.

THE MISSING FINGER

 

(for Nels Natus, 1896-1959)

In one version, your grandfather walks

purposely through the gently rustling field,

his steps only slightly wider than usual,

jaw clenched, mouth pulled inward,

holding in one upheld hand the finger

which the shears have suddenly removed.

In the barn, the sheep wait, perplexed,

half-kneeling, dark blood not their own

already seeping into damp wood and straw.

In another telling, he angles the gun

as though it were another limb, one eye

closed to the world of dancing summer leaves,

of soft breezes and silent water winding

back upon itself. He is an easy target

for himself, the burnt smell of flesh strangely

familiar, as the war draft notice flutters

on the kitchen linoleum, nearly rising into flight.

No one is left now to remember, or to claim

this as anything other than simple curiosity.

Yet in your mind's eye you can clearly see him,

his worn denim sleeve waving tentatively

to someone in the distance, someone whom

he cannot make out, his face nearly concealed

by a passing cloud of sepia and dust.

But you know it's him by what is missing,

the way the moonlight slashes through

unexpectedly -- once, then again.

GHOST IMAGE

 

My daughter unearths it from a stack of yellowing papers on the desk, that silly photo booth image of her parents, younger, turning to kiss; still half smiling, as the shutter clicks them permanently into the cool black and white usually reserved for historic artifacts, or great-grandparents, offering barely a passing glance at their secret worlds. It is the color of distance, and unforgiving detail. She laughs, holding it up to the light, someone's looping handwriting showing through the other side; looks at me, as if for explanation. I ask what she thinks, if it's funny to see her parents -- rarely in the same room for most of her life -- touching this way. "I like it," she says matter-of-factly. "But it's a ghost picture." I nod, and we both go back to whatever it was we were doing only a moment before.