Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Zen Vespers

Ink from sunset 
Brushwork of embers

Black moonlight
serenity of silence 
 

Fugitive Spring

All that shit
about democracy
in Iraq-

Tell it
to the dead
whether civilian,
insurgent or marine.

That recurring blog
of Mars and victory
pissing by the roadside:

Prayers, ordnance,
exploding ballots
with god 
on all sides.

          April 2004

Frank Pommersheim teaches at the University of South Dakota School of Law where his specialty is Indian Law. He received his B.A. degree from Colgate University, his J.D. from Columbia University and an M.P.A. from Harvard University. Before joining the South Dakota law school faculty in 1984, he lived and worked on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation for ten years. Pommersheim serves on several tribal appellate courts and most recently was named an Associate Justice for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Supreme Court. 

Pommersheim is the author of Braid of Feathers: American Indian Law and Contemporary Tribal Life (University of California Press, 1995) and numerous scholarly articles. His haiku and haiku-inspired poetry is collected in Haiku for the Birds and Other Related Stuff (Rose Hill Books, 2002), Mindfulness and Home: Poetry and Prose From a Prairie Landscape (Rose Hill Books, 1997), and Snaps: Poetry and Prose From a Family Album (Rose Hill Books, 1994).