A Chicana Returns To Nebraska From The Former Yugoslavia --

Saludos La Bloga readers.  For almost a year, I have been a Fulbright scholar living in the former Yugoslavia.  I have recently returned.  My flight to the U.S. took me from Belgrade, Serbia, to Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to Denver, Colorado.  I stayed with familia in Denver to acclimate a bit before driving the almost seven hours back to Lincoln, Nebraska where I live and teach. Just a few days ago, I completed the final trek. During those (almost) seven hours, I began writing a poem (in my head) because of the feeling of sudden familiarity about what I was seeing on this short I-80 Nebraska road trip. For almost a year, most everything I had been experiencing in the former Yugoslavia was new and different, demanding continual energy to make meaning. But here, suddenly, I was on land not completely unfamiliar.  And so this poem is all about what I saw on my trip to Lincoln, Nebraska.  A small explanation:  "Nebraska" is an Otoe Indian word.which translates to: "flat water," a literal description of the Platte River that runs alongside much of my I-80 journey (about 300 miles long) and cuts across the state.  

I see you, Nebraska

I see you, flat water

past the Colorado state line

the way you wind round this land about me:

these bluestem, bluegrass, buffalo grass lands

the gramas and indiangrass

that long prairie cordgrass 

“Yes, I remember you”

I see you, flat water 

running beside me, under me 

I-80 black top laid out miles ahead,

down to sea level, to river's bank
this Missouri tributary

while Joni sings,

“I’m traveling in some vehicle”

I see you, flat water, 

One great egret unfolding its wings from your shores

Its long black legs trailing, 
Cooper's hawks watching atop high mast light poles.

A quarter mile later,

farmers on their balers spit out 

their hay in round fat chunks 

I see you, flat water,

Even at the gas station

when the Harley Davidson women arrive,

their river patches on their leather chaps

her lace-up bodice, their straps and shiny boots

cool spangled braids

water reflecting off their shades

I see you, flat water

how you shape like a snake

almost coiled like Coatlalopeuh

your distant cousin

reminding me from where I come

where I’m going

taking you with me always

I see you, flat water

Your rows and rows of corn fields

you nourish

a crowded field of waving yellow tops

not quite yet ready in their glowing green

stalks mid-size, the maiz

wet from your pivot irrigation 

I see you, flat water

In between the trucks to my right

with showy lights, corroded steel plates

even a spanking red race car transport

But this one catches my attention--

the 18-wheeler with the “OM” symbol on the back

and “India” painted in calligraphic splendor on the driver’s door 

I see you, flat water

How the summer’s hazy sky

heavy with your vapors

opens up my pores, makes me think I can swim across the highway

You and “Canicula” or dog days, the Heliacal rising

Sirius warning us of possible worse days

unless, unless we heed

I see you, flat water

the lives you’ve taken and received.

How the loon mimics her grieving llantos, 

that echo across sandy borders, that filter into fog wisps

or simply hover at the in-between moment of dusk

your stratus clouds 

metallic silver snake patterns

I see you, flat water

After being swept up by many other rivers 

so very far away

with their histories, their secrets, a watercourse 

of torrents, floods, deluge, cascades of complexity

What they taught me, I see

in your reflection, what has always been.  

--Amelia M.L. Montes