Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Prayer for Nicholas

I pray
you find:

Peace
near the river,

Light
that is yours.

Nicholas, Kate, and Hannah
                             (10, 7, 2)

 They twist
river blind
to gospel;

Gathering
one gift
for all:

Eucharist
of light.

Desert Father

I. Your anger
chars the fields
we walk in. 

II. A desert
grows between us. 

III. We need
water and time. 

IV. I kiss
your parched lips,

the God
within you.

           (for N.) 

Hannah and Meta: A Daughter and
Her Imaginary Friend

Hannah said today:

"Meta lost her balance,
but her sister found it:

Near the rosy light
at the bend in the river."

A Daughter Reading

Kate reads
and reads

the river
of words:

sometimes
 the current;

sometimes,
the salmon

in the current.

A Daughter and Her Friend Sleeping
                     (for Hannah and Anna)

They look like
coyote twins:

Ecstatic
in the river
of sleep; --

They paw
the air:

Dreaming
of more.

Children at Sleep

Each breath
fills the room.
The current
rises and falls.

You wish
them well:

Sweet sailing.

They plunge on
oaring
through the night.

Alpha and Omega
   (for my children)

As you
walk into
the beauty
of yourselves,

Remember
you are also
walking
into history:

The bloody
 earth
of suffering
and dreams,

The broken
wing
of witness
and flight.

Good Friday
(Yankton Surgery Center)

I touch the Cross,

The anesthesiologist
holds my hand.

Something pierces
my side:

Birds fly out.

My children laugh
and feel the wound.

Blossoms
fill their hands.

St. Francis preaches
to the birds,

And whispers,
"Frank,

How are you feeling?
You did fine."

A Thirteen Year Old Son Thinks
of His Father

Salt and
the stones
in my hand;

The waves
and wind:

No clear
sailing

On shining
seas.

Prairie Haiku: A Series

         Fall

The blue sky erodes
according to plains scripture
as green wind scatters.

        Winter

Empty fields stiffen
in the barren embrace of
pale light and dark snow.

        Spring

Cottonwood trees bud
with sweet breath of renewal
in four directions.

        Summer

Orioles fly by
like gobs of black-orange paint
splashing wild plum dreams.

A Son at His Father's
    Poetry Reading

I. You want to come.
It surprises me.

I am honored,
but nervous:

Blood in the grammar,
words in my mouth. 

II. Light bends
the heart's verses

That are you
and the dream of you;

And me
and the dream of us. 

Daughters in Autumn
(for Kate and Hannah)

They look
like gold leaves blazing,
like the red tail hawk
 glaring from the fence post,
like women at the well.

They move
in the autumn air
with fierce concentration:
some gospel story on their lips
and mischief in their hearts.

Cider, pumpkins,
killing frost;
witches burning
at the stake.

Arm in arm,
they dream of
moonsmoke and sainthood,
the mystery of leaves:
the gentle talons at their cheeks.

Children in a Landscape

I.
They move
through buffalo grass
and big blue stem.

They smudge
sage in their hair
and toss
purple gayfeathers
in the wind.

They remember
ghosts of
Dakota relatives;
dogs and coyotes
yipping
at their heels.

They trudge
across wide
prairie meadows
rubbing
against longing
and endless sky. 

II. 
Their hearts curve
in the James River Valley,
along the Milky Way,
and into the arms of God.

World without end,
amen. 

A Father's Psalm

Each day,
I cross
the bridge
to place stones
and prayers
in your heart.

Karma: From a Father to
His Children

There is
a journey

But
no road:

Fallen leaves,
salt marshes,

The unswept
path

of love.

Horse Dreamer: Haiku for Kate
A Series

I. 
She rides a blue horse
across the river of dreams
into this sweet vale. 

II. 
Into this sweet vale
with sun all along the sky,
storms will gather too. 

III. 
Storms will gather too
behind monastery walls.
Then clear light sweeps in. 

IV. 
Then clear light sweeps in:
the blue horse on the prairie,
the reins in your hands. 

Vision of a Son
           -- for N.

He turns into light
 and is guided by voices,
the scent of prairie grass.

The ravening dusk:
haunted by fox paws,
the blood of saints.

Treatise on the Project of History

From ruins,
restoration;

From restoration,
redemption.

Emma's Courtyard /
   Ascension Thursday
       (Early Morning)

I cross Main Street
in the dense fog.

The courtyard
closed and cloaked
in silence.

Fallen pear petals
like spring snow

Rise into
the infinite Mind
of God,

the heart
of a small town,
its errant ways.

Refugees in Autumn
(or Back Roads to Far Towns)

The road
ahead
is open,

Full
of simple
truth:

Butterflies,
sadness,
dried blood.

Catholic Lament

Sometimes,
even often,
there is
the inability
to live,
or love,
the truth
we know.

Journey Against Solitude

Far North,
receding alder:

The wild mercy
of God.

Zen Wave
   (after Robert Aitken)

The motion
of the seasons,
even the years;

Bitter cold,
then plum blossoms.

But this too:
the stillness
of friendship;

A lamp
that never flickers.
 
 

* With acknowledgement of Dogen's question:

"Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, 
how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance 
all over the universe?"

Poem About Grief

Why
get over it?

For it remains
(always)
to be haunted
by life's
unforgiving radiance.

Dharma at Age Fifty-Five

Mystery
against dust

Wisdom
against will

Hawk
against nothing

Balm

Apply
wild gratitude
and iodine.

Passion

In the garden,
your stuttering voice
redolent of salt
and desert wisdom

Sputters,
catches fire,
redeems
the dark sky.

Reflections on a Sacred Text

All of one's days,
fields of disturbance:

a geography of rivers
and distant hills.

History of Christianity

Rocky soil,
low sky;

weeds full of
distant grace
and sin.

Theorem on Insight

Always
at the edge,
on the border
between this
and that,
when the moon
is full.

This Haiku

This sunny bleakness
this hard virtue to endure
this crooked river

Big Foot Memorial Ride Haiku

Lakota ponies
and blue ghosts of memory
fill the snowy sky

Haiku for the World Trade Center

Black rivers of smoke
to hell and half-way back home
windows on the world

After September 11, Approaching the
             Winter Solstice

Nothing is equal anymore

Not the earth or sky
or blind hawks in the rain

Not the living or the dead
or angels on fire

Not the Taliban
or marines in Afghanistan

Not the laws of history
or the wrath of God

Not the mayor or my cousin
working triage at St. Vincent's

Not the flame of terror
or match of resistance

     Not Osama bin Laden
     or the caves at Lascaux 

Except the essential journey
shortening our days 

Frank Pommersheim teaches at the University of South Dakota School of Law. Before joining the faculty in 1984, he lived and worked on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation for ten years. Professor Pommersheim currently serves as Chief Justice of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals and as Associate Justice of the Rosebud Sioux Supreme Court, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Court of Appeals, and the Grand Portage Chippewa Tribal Court of Appeals. More recently he was selected as an Associate Justice for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Supreme Court.
Pommersheim, who writes extensively in the field of Indian Law, is the author of Braid of Feathers: American Indian Law and Contemporary Tribal Life (University of California Press, 1995). In 1998, he received the University of South Dakota Belbas-Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2000, the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center Reconciliation Award.
Pommersheim is a native New Yorker and a graduate of Colgate University where he played varsity basketball. He obtained his law degree from Columbia Law School and then served as a VISTA lawyer in Alaska and as a lawyer with the East Harlem neighborhood office of the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs.
Pommersheim is the author of three collections of poetry, Snaps (1994), Haiku for the Birds (1997) and Mindfulness and Home (2002), all published by Rose Hill Books.
The poems appearing here are drawn from Pommersheim's published collections of poetry: Snaps: Poetry and Prose from a Family Album (Rose Hill Books, 1994), Mindfulness and Home: Poetry and Prose from a Prairie Landscape (Rose Hill Books, 1997), and Haiku for the Birds: And Other Related Stuff (Rose Hill Books, 2002).