Thursday, February 20, 2020

Gesture Down/I Don't Sing (2006) [Short Film; Cedar Sherbert] [James Welch poem]

Gesture Down/I Don't Sing (2006) [Short Film; Cedar Sherbert]
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492978/
https://vimeo.com/104668099


Native American Cedar Sherbert visits his extended family, and seeks to find his place amidst his family’s history. His poignant short film revolves around the figure of his grandfather, a singer, through whom he explores his own identity and his role in the family.

This man is my grandfather: father, womanizer, singer.
I don’t sing. I never learned.
His reservation. Mine?
The singer, the only one left.
I don’t sing, I never learned.
So I drive, and drive, and buy and buy, and give and give.
‘Cause this is what he did.
Will I belong?


James Welch - Gesture Down To Guatemala

(For Dave McElroy)

All things come cheap when schools turn civic
in despair. You bless the kids, gringo, rough shoes
banging past the comedor. Quick handout, one friend.

Here no one calls you sweetheart. Fried beans are foreign
and wind will toss your face in other fields - some dream.
Pantomimes are common; a pat stance, the best.

Always playing yourself up to second fiddle
and angry to learn, you left the pines to turn
a bad direction. Clouds and friends can mix you up.

Shawls color the rainbow a new odor. Those pajamas
you sport are simply tired old friends.
(Why do they have to paint the walls of houses pink?)

Drink too much or let the Indians touch you
with terrible words that mean you have chosen right
and that lovely blonde from Montana died a year ago

in Peru. (Paint is pink in Missoula too.) Before you teach
the clouds your past, or learn new names in Mayan ruins,
call me amigo, break old women down to gestures
of love, and quick Pase adelante, jovencito, pase!

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