Tom Davis

CONTACT:
231 N. Hudson Ave., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235    

BIO:
Thomas Davis has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, epic poems, and poetry. He has won the Edna Ferber Fiction Award and his book of poetry, Meditations on Ceremonies of Beginnings, was named an Outstanding Book of Poetry by the Wisconsin Library Association. In addition to his writing, he has had a long career in American Indian education, serving as the President or Chief Academic Officer of five tribal colleges or universities. His autobiography of his younger years, Beginnings, the Trail from a Western Colorado Boyhood to the Indian Controlled Schools Movement and Restoration of the Menominee Indian Tribe, describes the historical significance of the Indian controlled schools movement that ended the era of boarding school domination in Indian education and the beginnings of the self-determination movement that ended the Termination era of American Indian history. He has also had plays produced by amatuer production organizations. As an editor, he helped start three magazines, co-edited two poetry anthologies, and he and his wife, Ethel Mortenson Davis, own and manage Four Windows Press, a small publisher.

PUBLICATIONS:

Epic Poetry:
An American Spirit, an American Epic
The Weirding Storm, a Dragon Epic

Poetry:
Meditations on Ceremonies of Beginnings
Mythos of the Door

Novels: 
The Alkali Cliffs
Salt Bear
Juniper's Dragon
In the Unsettled Homeland of Dreams
Prophecy of the Wolf
Apples for the Wild Stallion

Non-fiction:
Out of the Light of Indian Civilization, co-written with Helen Maynor Scheirbeck
The Miracle of Navajo Technical University
Beginnings:  The Trail from a Western Colorado Boyhood to the Indian Controlled Schools Movement and Restoration of the Menominee Indian Tribe

Anthologies Co-Edited:
No More Can Fit Into the Evening
The Zuni Mountain Poets

Poetry

Mother’s Earth Song

I rummaged around in words all day,
changing this one, discarding that one,
snipping, pruning, and adding, a gardener
working in a field of meaning flowers.

Now, at this hour before dawn,
sitting in silence while first light smudges horizons,
I wonder where all the words:
written, recorded, spoken, chosen, discarded,  go.
Intelligence is not what distinguishes us
from an orangutan with its long, kind face:

Books stamp from printing presses.
Armies march with words
squeezed and polished into diamond thoughts.
Lovers touch each other’s faces
and speak of what is in the other’s spirit
as they forget they are caught in time
and will spin from where they are into a lifetime’s days.
Speakers breathe deep and reach
into throats, minds, and emotions to spew words
as arms wave and bodies lean forward
in an intensity of eyes that demand,

look at me, look at me, and listen.

All over earth words are made and remade and remade.

But what do they mean?
What happens to a blue whale’s song sung in ocean depths?
Where does buzzing and wing-fluttering
of worker bees go after they have danced
a map to a field of spring wildflowers?

Do all words and sounds on earth,
monkey clattering, elephant trumpeting, earthworms sliding, whisper of monarch wings in Mexico fluttering tree branches into motion,
purple finch song, haunting wind- moan echoing through a sandstone canyon, falling rock rumbling in isolated wilderness, the song of peoples
meld into a symphony pulsating planets, suns, and galaxies?

Is Mother Earth poet to eternity?
The singer whose songs sing meanings more profound and beautiful
than our words?

A Lover’s Song

We strung along a priceless string of stars
And made the moon a pendant just for show.
I cut the night into a dress, the bars
Of moonlight setting stars and dress aglow.

You laughed with love deep in your doe-brown eyes.
You swirled the universe upon your hem.
As dizzy as a lover filled with love’s first lies,
I watched your eyes grow dazzled by your gems.

Then, with a shrug, your dress fell to the ground.
The night became a carpet at your feet.
Stars glistened in a heap, their skies cut down.
The moon gleamed silver-cold without your heat.

We swirled together deep into the night,
Our years illuminated, blazing light.