I AM AN AMERICAN

Great Grandmother, they say, was a Cherokee.
Even a casual look at the members of my family
all standing together for the reunion picture
will tell you that we aren’t descended from
anything pure and easy.

The Cherokee lady was married to a cowboy
who spent enough nights with her to sire
a bunch of half breeds but most of his time
herding cows across the plains of Texas
before settling in Oklahoma.

The more recent names on that side of the family
are Dutch and English with my Grandfather
on my Mother’s side looking out from an old picture
the way Rembrandt painted some of his subjects
looking out at the world.

On the other side the names are English and French,
but the language those folks spoke was pure American hillbilly
straight out of Arkansas where people still take pleasure
in being Southern and unhurried in all things joyful
slowly but gladly tell you so.

We are the ubiquitous, mongrel American family
that includes everybody that came from everywhere
and will go and be whatever is needed now and whenever
to keep this country the place that belongs to nobody
in particular and to everybody who has the good fortune
to be born or taken without hesitation under the wings
of the Great American Eagle.

The Photographs: Tagger Art underneath the Interstate 163, San Diego River Bridge in Mission Valley.