California Osage

Pioneer Woman Cooks: 112 Fantastic Favorites for Everyday Eating

Glosa from Typhoni, by Sy Hoahwah (Comanche/Southern Arapaho)
A Christian, Oklahoma-shaped and melancholic,
caught at the entrance of a ditch
as the best breath of me 
tornadoes into the next county.

You, a middle-aged woman 
with long red hair in a flowered 
shirt, stand holding a platter 
of chicken breasts, grilled 
precious against rolling grass,
acres to the horizon, cattle pond, 
expansive cloud veil half-open. 
A Christian, Oklahoma-shaped and melancholic.

You’re an entrepreneur, marketer,
a writer, an influencer. You’re selling 
the platter, shirt, recipe, the chicken 
and, certainly, the banter. You are not selling
mustangs you board for the BLM, 
acres of bluestem grass that fatten cattle, 
all formerly Osage Reservation, every 
acre deeded to an Osage Indian in 1906 
caught at the entrance of a ditch

You were not here then, of course,
didn’t know Marlboro Man
or his family, probably didn’t 
know Osages or other Natives 
at the country club, the sorority house. 
I know you didn’t mention Osages 
in your first books or the blog, 
lived rather in the romantic 
“middle of nowhere” 
as the best breath of me. 

You first heard about us 
when family members began to share
ranch history, pride of acquisition, sections
allotted. The Pioneer Woman’s memoirs, cookbooks
built on life in the Osage at sunrise, 
cowboys on horseback with Black Angus,
herds of horses in silhouette, milkweed and meadowlarks, 
tornadoes into the next county.

California Osage

I remember sitting at Wakon Iron, 
with my cousin and her aunt, 
at the long table wanting to hear 

more conversations after dinner, 
people full, lying around the den,
shoes off, picking up the stories 

of our great-great uncle a judge 
for the first tribal government, 
but I was not there, at ease, 

invited over to visit, while Henry 
sank, growing thinner and thinner
shoulder blades sharp in sweats,

rolling branches of tiny streams
on his forearms, cool skin. 
He wet his mouth between words 

“it’s a good thing—” he said, 
but didn’t finish, sang peyote 
songs under his breath. 

It’s possible to be Native American
Church, Catholic or Friends, too,  
on the rez at least at Christmas, 

sweet tangerines, candy cane 
licked to a point. Salty meat gravy 
and fry bread greasy on our lips,

while he was home watching sports 
with his grandchildren, asking for quiet 
when the game was on, the roar of fans like surf. 
 

Grandma at the Mission

I was pious,
wore white man clothes. 

I understood a skirt 
couldn’t change me.

My family was gone,
no one to bring my haaská. 

I was the wobbly calf,
spindle-legged and too slow.

I was the calf whose mother 
the hunters took.

No— a calf whose mother ran
and couldn’t see to follow.
 

Possessions

Coil of my father’s letter holder, 
how little I have of his— or how much—
a steady presence working for civil service, 
short sleeve cotton shirts, trousers.
A mounted Japanese warrior drawn on silk 
that Americans bought in Japan. 
The Osage book he read before dinner, 
elegant hands reaching for a Pall Mall.

America’s wars ground our family: its war 
against Natives; purchase of the Virgin Islands 
as a coaling station for Navy ships, Marine 
expeditions. Carmen and Ted in World War II, 
Belgium and Germany. Our family in post-war
Japan, materiel staging the Korean conflict, 
later in post war France, then bases in Texas
for Viet Nam. His paperwork sending engines
and parts for aircraft to the jungle, rituals
through the week in a desk-lined hangar. 

Each day he made an Old Fashioned,
sugar cube and bitters, the roll of the word, 
Angostura, from the Orinoco narrowing
in Venezuela, a tonic to reduce fever,
later made in Port of Spain, splashed 
in my father’s glass, Trinidad on his lips
each time he sipped, the same years he swore
at my mother for being from St. Thomas. 

We waited for the whiskey-soaked cherry, 
coveted its sharp tang.