the sky remembers nothing (tonguepocket #2.2)

i photographed the birds while visiting the outlook point at the shoshonee massacre in richfield, utah. we (my parents and i) thought they were hawks but people who probably know better say they are crows. although my parents were avid hawk watchers, driving through the west side marshes of smithfield pointing out the hawks and keeping score. which is the better for poignant analogies — crows or hawks? poe opted for ravens but the sky remembers nothing.

the shoshone were massacred in an early january morning in 1863 along the bear river. this field is not that place although it marks it with markers by the daughters of utah pioneers and a brush trees adorned with trinkets and talismans left by natives who come to mourn the past. the story is nuanced with mormon settler backstories and us army colonels stuck in a salt lake city outpost and hungry to fight with blood and valor. this was the place for both blood and valor for patrick connor who was honored as brigadier general afterwards.

the young woman is my great great grandmother, abigail tippets and she’s an older woman pictured with my great great grandfather john barker dunn who settled areas in idaho, played for dances as a one-man band on drum and violin and harvested dear, bear, fish and beaver all around northern utah. their granddaughter wyoma appears in one of the photos taken in our home. she was named after the state while my great grandmother was there caring for several other children with my great grandfather away on a mormon mission.

The sky remembers nothing—
not the birds, not the names.
Just a hum in the blue
and the echo of a blame
When nobody came.

A woman nods off in old red velvet,
TV light twitching like guilt.
She dreamt she was younger, with unattached lilt
but the room stayed filled with wilted milk.

The violin glows like a furnace,
but the music’s long gone.
Bowe still held like a secret,
as the silence makes it all seem wrong.

The sky remembers nothing—
just two shapes in the air.
One dives, one drifts,
neither knowing where
the other takes the dare.

A girl in the photo watches
with the patience of stone.
She’s not waiting for someone—
she’s more or less alone.

The paper speaks in fragments,
old ink under glass and disappointments.
It said something about pioneers
but forgot just how the last verse went or meant.

The sky remembers nothing—
but the frame holds tight.
What we lost in the morning
still lingers at night.
One dives, one drifts
Before the polar shifts

the sky remembers nothing
but I remember days
catching bees in a glass jar sneeze
and laughing on our bandaid knees
can you hear us in the morning's last dew-kissed breeze?

Ahhh…
Oh, ahhh…
Oh…

It's things like these that I remember
Though we fall like falling leaves
The sky remembers nothing
Unless you whisper, "Pretty please…"

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