Uncollected Poems (10): The Beaver (twelve gematrias, with commentary)

THE BEAVER (1)

They shall eat it.


THE BEAVER (2)

In her womb.


THE BEAVER (3)

And the sand lizard.


THE BEAVER (4)

He comes running.


THE BEAVER (5)

Someone slain.


THE BEAVER (6)

Their father.


THE BEAVER (7)

His sins.


THE BEAVER (8)

A harlot.


THE BEAVER (9)

In the heat.


THE BEAVER (10)

He shall lead.


THE BEAVER (11)

The prophet.


THE BEAVER (12)

And he built.


The preceding are a series of poems constructed by gematria (traditional Hebrew numerology), for which see earlier postings on 7/8/2008, 7/14/2008, 11/30/2008, & 2/6/2009. The connection to Beaver goes back to my years living with the Seneca Nation of Indians in Salamanca, New York, a quick summary of which appeared (1978) in A Seneca Journal, viz:

I became a beaver in 1968. Richard Johnny John was my father. The ceremony took place in the longhouse & was very brief. They said some words in Seneca. I got a new name. I didn’t know if they were serious but the name was great. My wife & son became blue herons. She was called The One Who Travels, he was called The Talker. My wife’s sister was Thelma Ledsome & her mother was Effie Johnson. I got interested in beavers four years later – when we went to live in Salamanca. Salamanca is a railroad town right on the reservation. I saw it once on a German map of America that omitted Albany. The population now is 7000 & is mostly white. Charles Olson wrote: History is the new localism. And Ezra Pound: An epic is a poem including history. When I die my name goes back to where it came from. A Seneca will come for it.

The connection between the Beaver as totem (clan) animal & the short phrases derived from the Hebrew bible is now hard for me to reconstruct, but my time during our reservation stay coincided not only with the writing of Shaking the Pumpkin and A Seneca Journal, but with the beginnings of Poland/1931 and A Big Jewish Book. The dedicatory poem in A Seneca Journal is also a reflection of that:

SALAMANCA A PROPHECY

(1)

a city on
a turtle’s back
a longhouse
/
was like Jerusalem
‘s temple resting
on a whale

(2)

impossible to bring it all
together

Seneca Nation
Salamanca, New York
21.ii.74