BIG MEDICINE
JEWEL RODGERS
A poetic reflection written by Jewel Rodgers
in response to BIG MEDICINE: The York Project,
written and performed by Hasan Davis. York, an enslaved
member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was hailed as
"Big Medicine" for his power and presence — an enduring
story of survival amidst systemic erasure.
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Hasan Davis
Recounts a time
He taught a boy
To know himself, so that
The boy could value others - moments
After showing us the plentiful ways
York was stolen from his body.
I can’t quite put my finger on
The familiarity of it all.
As York tells me the ways he was silenced, I wonder
If mansplaining is a passed-down tradition
Originating from ancestral slave-splaining.
If the soft offense of revisiting an idea is heritage
Derivative of stealing the voice from the body.
And I can’t quite put my finger on
The familiarity of it all, but
If we just called it labor
Would you remember?
Two centuries’ worth seep from the tongue, pooling reflection
Of the bear York was prepared to fight with axe in hand
Of tree trunks made roots of his back ‘cross campsite
Of how, even as a boy, York is made a Master’s man -
Prepared to give his life in exchange for the one
Who owns it. And thank God
For the kind of survival
That supersedes the body.
But if this religion
Can make a Master (God) of a man
Was it ever a religion? And I don’t mean
We shouldn’t honor this religion; I just mean,
There are so many bodies.
And I can’t quite put my finger on
The familiarity of it all, but
If we just called it survival
Would you call this living?
Who would listen to you?
Who has claimed your voice lately?
And were you safe enough to take it back?
What other hands have grown accustomed to this kind of taking?
And what is this requisite overflow but inheritance
Making a well of a body that
Dare not run dry.
Hasan Davis
Performs rain dance in our eyes
And we make a well of whatever he has left to give.
York begins pouring out, wide as the Pacific
Just as Clark pulls his tongue above the tide;
York’s voice becomes a crumbling
At the underbelly of the plentiful.
If not those men, who else would be known
As the greatest explorers?
What if they were more like the Indigenous
Familiar with welcoming the spirit home?
Who else would hold all this guilt?
Can you swallow all this shame?
What becomes of the mother tongue
If not the culture we fight to keep?
Hasan Davis
Gives voice to an endless man
Who is unadorned for the ways
It could not have been without him
Because what else was there to do
But obey in excellence?
To be an endless overflow?
To drown in his own offerings.
And isn’t there
Something eerie about
This kind of abundance?
To be of a well
That could never
Stop pouring
Even if it begged.
And what is this ache
In a greedy man’s heart
But inheritance?
What else
Do your
Ancestors
Pass down
But rage?
And longing?
And all this power.
York swells his chest
And sets sail for the last time
And I can’t stop thinking about you
And all this water.