Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Slow Turtle
(1930-1997)

There is a strong onshore wind, several knots; rain stings the
     face and the tide is running high. 
Several hundred are bunched between the blacktop of the town
     beach parking lot, 
And the smoothly curling grey green water's edge.  The lead
     singer starts the AIM song's chorus.
The long white aluminum birch bark canoe is breached by the
     first incoming wave. 
From somewhere, behind the singing crowd, a small blue
     styrofoam open beach kayak is produced. 
The single paddler, helped by three others, pushes through the
     waves to float free, bobbing just beyond the surf.
Slow Turtle's son, holding the grey white clay vessel created by
     his sister, and in his turn, supported by two others against
     the surge of the sea,
Wades chest high into the frigid waters of the bay and with
     effort, passes their father's ashes, over the side 
Of the small boat into the waiting arms of the paddler, for their
     last journey.
To the sound of the heartbeat drums, and the continuing chorus
     this Medicine man, lover of the four directions, four seasons, 
     the four colors, Heads seaward. The boat that carries him
     now fully visible, now behind the cold waves. 
After bathing in sea waters by his companion in the boat, the
     clay shell-and his ashes-rejoin the sea.

                           - November 1, 1997

Robert Doyle was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1937. He attended public schools and graduated from Holy Cross College in 1959, and obtained his law degree from Georgetown in 1963. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1959 to 1961, mostly at the Pentagon on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. He has practiced law in Northampton from 1963 to the present and has been active in Democratic politics ("it seems forever"). A self described liberal "lefty," he lives in the foothills of the Berkshires. With his friend and colleague, Peter d'Errico, he has over the past decade represented traditional native peoples and nations. He is married to Poppy McCluskey and they have eight children.