“These flies! Why did God make them!” Lovie fumed,

Her pitched voice rising, all for catching up with

Bony, careworn hands long risen to

The fanning of the fly-infested air

About her ears. “And why do they insist

On landing on our ears—then set there doing

Nothing?”


“Maybe they think they're us two

Old gadflies touching down in Earizona

Winters,” Will made light. “We don’t do much

But set there either when we get there. But

What makes you think God made them? Don’t you think

They look a lot more like his, Satan’s work,

The Lord of Flies? Old Farley says they’re the

Official bird down there.”


“He’d know, all right.

But why our ears? I can’t see either one’s

So fetching. If I didn’t know too well,

I’d say they couldn’t one of them draw flies.

I’ve turned it over in my mind so often,

Getting no return, that I’d’ve thrown

My hands up in the air if they’d not been

There all along—GIT!—ever since the first

Warm flyblown summer day. Instead I washed

Them both of the infernal matter—yes,

It’s his work, no doubt—and then turned the whole

Bedeviling question over to my ripe

Imagination.”


“What did it dream up?”

“It fancied they see our two ears as one more

High-dry pair of soft-pink sea shells heaved up

All those sea-tossed years ago with all

Its shale, this seabed peak we’re standing on

A heady half-mile high: ‘Look! right beneath

Our foul-smelling noses and our filthy-

Sticky feet, two more—hah! some defense!

Let’s stick it to them, put our ears up to

These shells and hear the mighty ocean’s roar

Not fifteen miles (if we could only fly straight,

So it’s more like fifteen thousand) south

To where the breakers break upon the shore,

The white-capped combers she could clearly see once

From here, but no more.’ Well that was fine,

My fancy thought, for warm-ups. Then it took

To turning every figment loose and let

Its whole imagination run amuck

—And then what didn’t it see out the corners

Of its lively mind’s eye! saw our ears

As mirror-image aircraft carriers

Tossed in the hairiest of hairy seas:

The wavy-wild Atlantic on the right,

And on the left the windblown, whitecap-swelled

Pacific, each one bobbing in a storm-tossed

Sea—and just the things to count on come

To teaching all the young fries, proud they’ve got

Their wings, their takeoffs and their landings—SPLASH!

You’ve got to time them with the pitch and roll

—NO, not the boiling sea, the beads of sweat

On deck!”


“I see, Love, your imagination

Hasn’t lost its vision one bit since

That day when it took to imagining

A life for you with me, to make me wish

It had imagined, through the years, a little

Better one, for you if not for me.”


“No, it imagined things just fine. It’s been

A good life, all in all.”


“That sounds like something

I should get in writing, so’s to have

a word or two in my defense when called

Up to the stand.”


“What makes you think you’re going

To be called up, not down?”


“I only thought

To plant the seed in his mind, just in case,

Through some Jehovah’s oversight, I might

Not find my good name on the witness list.

To prove how good a witness I would be,

I saw back there that your imagination

Clearly saw how much they all were counting

On them.”


“Who is ‘they’? who’s ‘them’ they’re counting

On?”


“Why, Love, I mean your fancied flyboys;

How their lot is counting on our ears.

They know that we know, when we hear their fast-

Incoming kamikaze buzz, we’ve only

Got a fraction of that time to get

Our hand-flown air defenses in the air

To wave them off, and if, as we are getting

With the years, too slow, they zero in

And—taxi to dead stop? why, they scorn

Such flyweight flying tactics—no, they stick

The landing cold to perfect tens, then hold

Their ground, still, almost longer than they dare

To stick around—then buzz off as expressly,

Notching up another kill that they

Can boast of so triumphantly among

Their kind for days (their whole life), for their having,

So fly-bravely, counted coup on us.”


“Will Sams, I guess I’ve known you long enough

To know, by heart, there’d be no flies on your

Imagination either.”


“No, I didn’t

Have to go so far as getting fancy.

You got to the heart of it a ways back

When you said ‘then set there doing nothing.’

I know flies are always doing something

So’s to make the most of their few days

Of life, the which is nothing so much as

To make our longer ones a living hell.

I only had to use a little logic

To conclude their ‘nothing’s nothing so much

As their way of counting coup on us.”


“I only wish to that same hell you speak of

I could count now on my memory.

They’ve got me so put out I can’t recall

Where I’ve heard tell of ‘counting coup’ before.”


“My love, we two are almost old enough

Now to have seen the Great Plains Indians,

This earth’s First Nation with their Animist

Religion, holding dear life, seeing virtues

Even in the lowliest of creatures.

Not alone, they saw, fell to the eagle

All the traits they so admired and worshiped.

So it was they came to look upon

That smallest, blackest, lowliest of all,

The winged pest of the plains, the ‘lands-on-ear,’

And saw for all its lowness that it claimed

No small amount of native pluck and daring

To land plunk! on ears of warrior

Braves—even with their fearsome tomahawks

In hand—and stay there even as they saw

Each red man’s ear grow all the redder for

The blow of the humiliation; stayed

When all reflexive instinct for the mean-

Intentioned motion coming its way fast

Was telling it to fly. And so the red man

Saw it won no little honor for

The blow of the disgrace the red man suffered

At its hands he understood to be

Its filthy-sticky feet; an honor that

Would never die for each fly-magnified

Recounting of the daring blows it struck,

The coups it counted and recounted dear,

For nights on end (all twenty, its whole life)

Around the council fires of its great tribe—”


“Oh, Will, these flies are like to drive me bats!

Let’s go inside where all your fancied words,

So like a mountain man, won’t have to get

In line behind a hellish swarm of flies

To get my ear.”


"My dear, my fancy’s fires

Would all be out and cold before our old

Arthritic bones should get us there. Besides,

I taught my words a long time back to yell

‘Geronimo!’ then make a beeline for

Your ear, sound-swatting all those in their path

The hell out of the way. I won’t be long.

And so the Crow, Arapaho, Lakota,

Sioux, Apache, Kaw, Oglala, Blackfoot,

Kiowa, Assiniboine, Cheyenne,

Comanche, Cree, Shoshone, Osage, Pawnee

—All the Great Plains tribes—put ears up to

The pink shell that was Mother Earth, the sacred

Plains they walked upon, and was the earth’s

First telegraph, to hear the Ocean’s roar

That was her counsel, telling them above

The distant thunder of the hooves of sacred

Buffalo upon the Great Grass Ocean,

Green and gold, ‘Go, take, too, for your own

The “little brave”’s courageous way of landing

A humiliating blow upon

A shame-struck enemy, and make a deadly

Game of it, and call it counting coup.’

(They took ‘coup’ from the French; their native instinct

Told them it would be a ‘blow’ to them.)

It called for bravely riding up in battle

To an enemy, at risk of grievous

Injury or death, and touching him

With weaponless hand or with feathered coup stick,

Notched for each life-risking coup so counted.

What each coup as much as said was, 'This

Bare hand might just as easily have been

An arrow or a knife, this feathered stick

A spear delivering you bloody unto

Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, were you

Worthy of this honor, death in battle,

At my hand.' And such was the disgrace

Of the denial for the 'harmless' touch,

That coup was counted and recounted often

Round the council fires, glowing in

The memory of one, and searing as if

It would scar the other one, for life.

The tribal honor system held that death

In battle was the greatest honor; yet

A brave could win much honor for himself,

And so win high position in the tribe,

By counting coup. So great was the prestige

Attached to honor that the battle waged

Was most intense to count the greatest coup,

As measured by the sheer pluck in the face of

One who’d kill or be killed rather than

Be counted coup on, and so fiercely fought.

The victor won the honor, proudly sported

Upright in his headband, of a single

Eagle feather, which, if he was wounded

In the coup, he got to dye blood red.

If wounded in a hand-to-hand exchange,

He won the envied honor of a spread hand

Painted red on buckskin or on pony.

One white cross sang of a daring rescue;

Two white crosses, one on horseback; painted

Hoof print on a pony sang the honor,

Counted highly in the firelight’s glow,

Of one brave heart for coup of captured mount,

Which honor glory he might sing of, seated

To the right of the Great Spirit, all

His days high in the Happy Hunting Ground.

But now the Crow, Arapaho, Lakota,

Sioux, Apache, Kaw, Oglala, Blackfoot,

Kiowa, Assiniboine, Cheyenne,

Comanche, Cree, Shoshone, Osage, Pawnee—”


“Will, if I don’t go in now I swear

I’ll lose my wits for all these flies!”


“Love, wait.

I only want to say the honor-gloried,

Legendary storied braves of yester-

year, the much historied Indians,

The Crazy Horses, Sitting Bulls, Cochises,

Big Foots, Little Ravens, Red Clouds, Howling

Wolfs, Rain in the Faces, Plenty Coups,

No longer ride the Great Plains looking to

Count coup. Those days are long gone. Anymore,

They set themselves down on their reservations

Counting beaucoup heaps of revenue

From Indian tax-free casinos, striking

One hard blow to those who drop the clothes

From off the backs, the food from out the mouths,

The roofs above the heads of their poor children,

On the tables, in the one-arm bandits

—Down the drains the lives of those upon

Whose blameless, helpless heads that we should count on

To hold hopes and dreams is counted greatest

Coup, a crushing blow that strikes so low

As breaking faultless heart—”


“Oh, Will, please stop!”


“I’m almost done, Love. But what modern braves

Count most upon today is counting coup

Without they’re risking injury much less

Their death, unless from the excesses born of

Sudden and great wealth. They bear their notched

And feathered coup sticks in the hand upon

The long arm of the law that keeps them at

Arm’s distance, free of harms of taxes and

Of running gambling dens. Yet far as we

Can see, for shame! of having fallen so low

From their spiritual life, no redder

Are there ears. Yet what of our ears, Love?

We white-eyes, near descendants of our forebears

Who not long before us counted coup

With forked tongue and yet more forked treaty pen.

Our ears are pink, but maybe we have only

All conspired to call them pink so we

Won’t ever have to call them what they are,

A deeply blushing shame! of crimson, for

Our taking their Great Plains, their herds of sacred

Buffalo, their culture—all their lifeblood—

Giving them, in fair return, some gewgaw

Beads and blankets and some reservations

(Which they had in spades at signing) not

Much bigger, which our near forkfathers, by

Fast breaking them like words and treaties, then

Made smaller and yet s—”


“Will! I just can’t stand it!”


“Lovie, wait, my last word. If I leave off

Now there’s just no counting on the coup

Of getting, at my age, this thought that’s on

The tip of my right fork back on again,

And it’s a sweet one. What I started in

To say is there’s another way we white-eyes

Take to counting coup these days—with words.

No, not by winning battles with them (leastways

In our minds) or getting in the last one,

Or by touching someone with them in

One of our heartfelt human-touching ways.

Love, those ways are as old as Cain’s and Abel’s

Old man and old lady, as the young

To this day speak of theirs, not knowing what

A blow it is. No, there’s a new way that

Is all the rage on boldest lips today,

And by which coup a brave can win much honor

And position in the Parley tribe.

You only need some native pluck to play,

The rules are few: At great risk of a harsh

Or cold rebuff, which well might deal a stinging

Blow to your defenseless pride—or kill it,

More’s the like (no danger means you count

No coup)—you daringly dash up to someone,

Not a weapon in your hand, and bravely

Reach out, well before, surprised, they have

A chance to fend you off, and boldly touch them

With the first word out your mouth—then quickly

Lay another one upon them, then

Another, then another, and so on

And on and on to this much honored end:

You don’t just reach out, like Ma Bell, and touch

Someone with some few words—you grab them, whole,

You buttonhole their soul, and so you hold them

Much as did that ancient mariner

So hold the wedding guest, as you’ll recall,

With but his glittering eye, fast holding them,

Not giving them an opening so large

As they might drive a have-no-truck-with-you

Through, giving them the chance to lay some few

Choice words in edgewise on you, touching you

So ‘Hey, look at the time—I Gotta go!’ly

As to break the spell. And so you hold

Them spellbound just as long as all your native

Pluck and courage dares hold out, so you can

Hold out for that honor you can live with

—Then you let out (deep inside) your most

Blood-curdling war whoop, let them go, then fast

Skip out of harm’s way, laughing (yes, inside)

As you reach up and pluck a passing eagle,

Stick that feather in your cap, and call it

macaroni? Lovie, no, you call it

Counting chatty coup.”


“—That’s right, you’d better

Skip your hide out of harm’s way, Will Sams!

But just you wait! I’m going in—where there’s

Not so much as a fly upon the wall—

Where you’ll be when you catch the smell of something

Cooking heavy in the air and want

A bellyful. Yet just you see if one

Does not let fly and land one on your ear!"

David, while I enjoyed the buzz, this one drags on too long. The dialogue does not lend itself to your usual satirical standards. It is good to see that the website is back on line though.

Les

Hi David,

I am stoked to see a new piece from you after so long. No time to read it tonight with it pushing 2 am, but I will be sure to get to it tomorrow!

Cheers.
Brucefur