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Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination 5

of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation
of a Wild Indian Rezervation Natalie Diaz

Natalie Diaz

Natalie Diaz (b. 1978) is an American poet and language activist.
She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Chris Felver/Getty Images
community. After attending Old Dominion University in Norfolk,
Virginia, on an athletic scholarship, Diaz went on to play
professional basketball in Europe. She returned to Old Dominion
University and earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in writing. Her debut book of poetry, When
My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), powerfully evokes American Indian experiences by blending
personal and mythical imagery. She currently teaches creative writing at Arizona State University
and also works with the last speakers of the Mojave language to teach and revitalize it.
KEY CONTEXT The poem’s title identifies its form, in which each line begins with a successive
letter of the alphabet. The title also employs alternative spellings of several words: “Anglican” (the Church
of England, and likely a reference to the colonization of North America the British began with Jamestown
in 1608), “seraphim” (the highest order of angels, in the Christian tradition) and of “reservation.” As the
United States expanded during the nineteenth century, many American Indian tribes were forced off of
their land and onto reservations, areas of land that were often difficult to farm. In addition to the title, the
poem makes many references to Christianity, a religion that was often imposed on American Indians via
residential schools that sought to forcibly assimilate children according to the creed of “kill the Indian,
save the man.”

Angels don’t come to the reservation.
Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.
Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing — death. And death
eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel 5
fly through this valley ever.
Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though —
he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical
Indian. Sure he had wings,
jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops, 10
kids grow like gourds from women’s bellies.
Like I said, no Indian I’ve ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.
Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something —
Nazarene church holds one every December,
organized by Pastor John’s wife. It’s no wonder 15
Pastor John’s son is the angel — everyone knows angels are white.
Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.
Remember what happened last time

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