Heartbeat. The drum of human life. No matter who we are, where we were born, or how we live, it is the rhythm of each of our lives.
The Native American women poets who are today’s subjects are from different tribes. Their lives are not alike, but they share with each other, and with all the rest of us, the birth of new life, and the deaths of loved ones.
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Elise Paschen (1959 — ) is co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country. She is the daughter of the renowned prima ballerina Maria Tallchief. Dr. Paschen teaches in the MFA Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her major poetry collections are Houses: Coasts (1985), Infidelities (1996), Bestiary (2009) and The Nightlife (2017). She was the Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America (1988-2001), and has edited numerous anthologies, including Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America (1997) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elise-paschen
Birth Day
— for Alexandra, born May 17, 1999
Armored in red, her voice commands every corner. Bells gong on squares, in steeples, answering the prayers. Bright tulips crown the boulevards.
Pulled from the womb she imitates that mythic kick from some god’s head. She roars, and we are conquered. Her legs, set free, combat the air.
Naked warrior: she is our own. Entire empires are overthrown.
Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum, so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in your brainpan, feel free to add a comment. _________________________________________
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
General Jacob H. Smith’s infamous order “Kill Everyone Over Ten” was the caption in the New York Journal cartoon on May 5, 1902. The Old Glory draped an American shield on which a vulture replaced the bald eagle. The caption at the bottom proclaimed, “Criminals Because They Were Born Ten Years Before We Took the Philippines”
Trump could salvage what has been a mediocre trip to Asia by a small political act, even if it might give him the same Executive Order troubles he’s experienced with Congress.
There have been several decades of constant interest in returning Philippine war trophies from the 1901 Balangiga Massacre and its aftermath, much like Poland wants more WWII reparations from Germany.
More distractions are needed as #TrumpRussia marches on, and Agent Orange is running out of options, and his off-the-cuff tweetery is not helping. This is the kind of low-risk deal with minimal military effect that is more optimal for Mr. Bone Spur.
There are even Clinton and Rohrabacher angles for Trump to play in this event. But will Duterte be smart enough to play Trump with enough adoration to consolidate his own authoritarian rule.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to ask President Trump to return three war trophies that U.S. troops took from a village more than 100 years ago during the Philippine-American War, according to CBS News.
“We are aware that the Bells of Balangiga have deep significance for a number of people, both in the United States and in the Philippines,” a U.S. national security spokesman told CBS News.
“We will continue to work with our Filipino partners to find a resolution,” the spokesman added.
The Philippines has repeatedly called for the Bells of Balangiga, which were taken by U.S. troops in retaliation for the “Balangiga massacre” in 1901, to be returned, calling them a part of the country’s national heritage.
Despite Philippine independence in 1946, the U.S. has yet to return the bells. One of them is located on a military base in South Korea, and the other two reside on an Air Force base in Wyoming.
On September 28, 1901, Filipino militants from the village of Balangiga ambushed Company C of the 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment, while they were at breakfast, killing an estimated 48 and wounding 22 of the 78 men of the unit, with only four escaping unhurt. The villagers captured about 100 rifles and 25,000 rounds of ammunition. An estimated 20 to 25 of the villagers had died in the fighting, with a similar number of wounded.[4]
In reprisal, General Jacob H. Smith ordered that Samar be turned into a “howling wilderness” and that any Filipino male above ten years of age capable of bearing arms be shot. From the burned-out Catholic town church, the Americans looted three bells which they took back to the United States as war booty.
The 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment, however, maintains that the single bell in their possession was presented to the regiment by villagers when the unit left Balangiga on April 9, 1902.[5] Smith and his primary subordinate, Major Littleton Waller of the United States Marine Corps were both court-martialled for illegal vengeance against the civilian population of Samar. Waller was acquitted of the charges. Smith was found guilty, admonished and retired from service, but charges were dropped shortly after. He was later hailed as a war hero.[6]
American military historians’ opinions on the Samar campaign are echoed in the February 2011 edition of the US Army’s official historical magazine, Army History Bulletin: “…the indiscriminate violence and punishment that U.S. Army and Marine forces under Brig. Gen. Jacob Smith are alleged to have unleashed on Samar have long stained the memory of the United States’ pacification of the Philippine Islands”.[29]
![balangiga-cartoon-kill-all-over-10_1_[1]](https://flowersforsocrates.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/balangiga-cartoon-kill-all-over-10_1_1.jpg?w=640)
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