my book just arrived. the very first poem i opened to was the one that trevino read for us at a makeshift poetry circle we started when a bunch of us ndn poets were stuck in a hotel together in western amman, jordan two years ago. it nearly made me cry. it's below.

buy his new anthology.

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Lakota Language Lesson with Benjamin
by Trevino Brings Plenty

I sit at the kitchen table
with my grandfather.
We are learning the Lakota language.
We listen to a cassette recording
he made three years ago.

We sound out the strange words together.
We say the words for
all my relations, good,
woman, horse, cat, dog, home.

All those drinking years he had--
I remember them all.
His marriage, years as a chief
in the Marines, no-good alcoholic children,
granchildren's birthdays, his youngest brother
who drowned, the remainin brother who died
two years ago, his ex-wife who died last year.
My grandfather can't recall any of these.

A brain blood clot pressed down
and crushed his memory.
A year after surgery he has regained
his motor functions and speech.

My grandfather and I take a break
from our language lesson.
I make him a ham and cheese
sandwich on 12-grain wheat bread.
I place it on a plate
with a handful of baked potato chips.
I set the plate in front of him
and he says, "Thank you, sir."
I open a can of diet cola and
pour it into a plastic cup with ice.
I drink from the can and set
the cup next to his plate.
He says, "Thank you, sir."
"Lala," I say, "We are doing good, enit."
He says, "Wast'e."

It was dusk when my grandfather
and his two younger brothers
were drinking near the Cheyenne River.
The youngest wanted to swim across
the river. My two grandfathers
drove in a pickup truck over a bridge
and parked on the other side.
My grandfathers watched their youngest
brother sink in the middle of the river.
They couldn't do anything about it.

"Lala," I say. "I think we are doing good, enit."
My grandfather smiles and says, "Wast'e,"
and takes a bite from his sandwich and eats
a couple of chips. He asks for a straw,
I get one, and place it in his cup.

In the mornings I dress my grandfather in
blue jeans and a western shirt. He slips on
his white tube socks and brown cowboy boots.
He stands before a mirror and combs thinning hair.
"Phoebe," I say to him. "That was your wife's name."
"Phoebe," he says, "that's a funny name."
"Major and Abraham," I say to him.
"Those were your brothers."
"Yes," he says, "Major and Abraham."

Before his surgery my grandfather talked at me
in the Lakota language, point blank.
When I was younger, I asked him at a powwow
if the Lakota drum group sang any words.
My grandfather laughed at this and said, "Yes, Takoja."
Three years ago I remember my grandfather sitting
at the kitchen table with a tape recorder in front of him.
He said he was making these tapes for his grandchildren.
When I'm away from my grandfather he asks my wife
where that nice man went, not rememberin that
I am his grandson. My wife says, "He went to school."
"When is he coming back?" he asks.
"Soon," she says. She says, "Soon."

I press play on the cassette player after my grandfather
finishes his meal. We sound out more Lakota words.
As we sit at the table, he says,
"My voice sounds funny on that machine."
I say, "The language sounds funny, enit."
He says, "The words feel like home."
I say to him, "I think we are doing good, Lala."
My grandfather looks at me and says,
"Wast'e, Takoja. We are doing good."