"Blind Curse" by Simon Ortiz

Simon Ortiz, today's featured poet, is a contemporary Native American writer. He comes from the Acoma Pueblo tribe, and his heritage and personal experiences influence his introspective poetry.

Key terms: metaphor, free verse, Native American poetry

Blind Curse

You could drive blind
for those two seconds
and they would be forever.
I think that as a diesel truck
passes us eight miles east of Mission.
Churning through the storm, heedless
of the hill sliding away.
There isn’t much use to curse but I do.
Words fly away, tumbling invisibly
toward the unseen point where
the prairie and sky meet.
The road is like that in those seconds,
nothing but the blind white side
of creation.

                   You’re there somewhere,
a tiny struggling cell.
You just might be significant
but you might not be anything.
Forever is a space of split time
from which to recover after the mass passes.
My curse flies out there somewhere,
and then I send my prayer into the wake
of the diesel truck headed for Sioux Falls
one hundred and eighty miles through the storm.

Ortiz's poem is a short meditation on "two seconds" on the road. There's a chance that this is reminiscent of a crash: "heedless / of the hill sliding away" but it's likely that in the moment, they are merely passed by a truck as focus shifts from the road. Ortiz slows down this moment, slowing down even the "words" that "fly away, tumbling invisibly". His curse fades away, useless and unnoticed. His words have no significance... his thoughts turn to his own being and his life, which "might be significant / but ... might not be anything". The curse (his words) that slips out on the road is representative of this state, in which something can seem so significant but fade away into the unseen distance before it gains any larger significance. This is, of course, indicative of the Native American struggle as a whole, as Ortiz surely understands-- his people have been "cursing" and even "praying" for generations as the diesel trucks of America simply speed by them, cutting through their land without a thought.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/175388