Ofelia
Zepeda is a Native American poet who possesses a kind of double vision.
She sees the contemporary world through her own highly observant eyes
and, at the same time, through the eyes of her Tohono O’odham
ancestors.
Seeing this way infuses her poetry with a resonance and depth that
makes it a delight to read—and re-read. Zepeda is as clear-eyed
about the past as she is about the present. She recalls waiting for the
school bus on a cold morning inside her father’s truck, listening
to the sounds of the engine, the windshield wipers, and the “soft
rain on the hood.” She remembers celebrating Mass on the
“cold dirt floor of the Winter Solstice.” In the present,
she sees both the frustration and the humor in a woman she observes
trying to eat pancakes with one hand while her other resides in a cast:
“Watching her, I realize eating pancakes is a two-handed
job.”
Whatever she sees, she filters through her second set of eyes, which
keep the past always present. She tells of traveling to Waw Giwulig,
the most sacred mountain of the Tohono O’odham, to ask for
blessings—and forgiveness. She writes that one should always
bring music to the mountains, “so they are generous with the
summer rains.” And, still, “the scent of burning wood /
holds the strongest memory. / Mesquite, cedar, piñon, juniper, .
. . / we catch the scent of burning wood; / we are brought home.”
It is a joy to see the world afresh through her eyes.
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Where Clouds Are
Formed
by Ofelia Zepeda
University of Arizona Press,
2008
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