Roadside shrines are a common sight in Arizona, and Jesse Sensibar has seen his share. He's a poet and a tow truck driver, and that job comes with being witness to a lot of loss. Sensibar says the shrines speak to him, and he is compelled to pull over and write poems about them. In today's Poetry Friday segment - from the cab of his 1994 Chevy rollback tow truck - Sensibar reads from his new book Blood in the Asphalt: Prayers from the Highway.
Jesse Sensibar:
This book started out as a series of Facebook posts where I would photograph shrines, stopping along the side of the highway, and then I would write about them sitting right there on the side of the road, looking at the shrine. So, I'm going to read you a few of those:
18 SEPTEMBER 2017
Tonalea, Arizona. Navajo Nation US 160. This shrine for Sam and Linda sits in front of the barbed wire and my white truck, beside the busy Tonalea Store where the REz dogs wait like refuges for a ride into town and the hope of a better life of canned Alpo. Along with the flowers and the solar lights, it's made of Ford truck emblems, a motorcycle tire and wheel, and two connecting rods with pistons attached. Their photo has been all but taken by the sun. It's pretty unique - inside that white ammo can is the remembrance from their funeral, pens, and a book to leave notes in. The most recent is just a few weeks old from kids with grandkids. It begins, "Well it's been six years now..."
13 AUGUST 2017
Shrine for Ashley Marie in the median on 22nd Street, between Living Water Ministries and Golden Corral. Not a bad place to be - she's got Jesus in the water on one side and fried chicken buffet on the other.
27 AUGUST 2017
Dudleyville, Arizona Highway 77, southbound at Mile 132. Fallen cross for Joseph Paul. I'm tempted to put it back up, but I don't want to interfere.
30 JUNE 2017
Fish-n-K8 on a cross at Mile 465 on US 89 northbound, just South of Cameron, Arizona under a brand new row of streetlights, completely out of place here on the Rez, where most of the houses still lack electricity or running water. Two oars wrapped in tinsel and Mardi Gras beads. Lots of love shown in the offerings - a pistol magazine, a Marble Canyon Belt Buckle, a wristwatch, a brass turtle and a small deer antler, coffee cups, peace signs, and money - French, America, and Mexican. A night-blooming cirrus grows strong in the shade of this shrine. It feels like a love of life. She was clearly loved.
31 DECEMBER 2017
Twin Arrows. Found this child's shrine - nothing but Sharpie markers used to form the words that hang heavy like the stone walls in this small abandoned hut here along the interstate, on an old stop on the 66 Ghost Road, now long gone like this child. There's a cold wind gonna blow, but not today little girl. Yours is the last memorial I'm going to post in 2017. Dylan whispers in my head the words he gave me - "Mama, take these guns from my hands, I can't shoot them anymore." I wish it was true but there is no rest for the wicked. Read it and weep. I do. Every time.
Poetry Friday is produced by KNAU's Gillian Ferris. If you have an idea for a segment, drop her an email at gillian.ferris@nau.edu.
