By Crystal Davis
AP English, English 10 Honors, and ESL Writing
 
How would it feel to be the last? Not last in line or last to be chosen on the team, but the very last representative of your language and culture? No family, no friends, no homeland.

Students in English 10 Honors considered this question after reading Ishi in Two Worlds -- A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America by Theodora Kroeber. Ishi, a Native American, wandered into Oroville, California, in 1911 after many years of living alone. All members of his tribe had perished. The story of his relationship with UC Berkeley anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, and what Ishi generously reveals and cryptically conceals about his culture, fueled the first discussions in this place-based literature class.

Considering Ishi's plight in the context of California's history and the aspirations of its growing non-indigenous population gave students the opportunity to imagine themselves in Ishi's place -- by default, cultural emissaries to a society that left no place for them. As a creative extension of this idea, students were asked to imagine themselves the "last." Here is a sample of some of their poems:

I Am the Last
by Ellen Liu

I gaze at thousands of stars stunning with a beam of faint light,
a single snug word dropped from my tongue
Mysteriously simple
Who can ever understand, though?

Losing my way around the wandering crowded,
I’m not alone.
My ancestors and descendants abandoned me
Who would save me from floating on the edge of culture,
on the edge of the cliff?

The responsibilities of my lost civilization push me to smile.
To smile like a clown
to hide the sorrow
behind the underside of our history.
No, of my history.

Thousands of times I’ve been roaring towards the sky,
towards the stars.
Could one of them be one of my ancestors
who’s been watching me,
all night long?
Am I doing alright?
While I feel like
I’m falling
down
down
down.

“Can you hear that? My clansmen?”
Who could ever want to be the last.


I Am the Last
by Shelly Xu

Staring around,
the darkness of becoming extinct enveloped me
the loneliness of independence embraced me
the silence of emptiness devoured me
I am the last.

Standing there,
with my eyes indistinct by tears
with my lips sealed by the reality
with my hands tenacious by unfamiliarity
with my heart quivery facing a radically different world
I am the last.

Crying here,
I am trying to explore my own sky
I am attempting to breathe deeply with the bleeding air
I am here
In my new world.

Everything changes on me
But one thing cannot be neglected forevermore is

I am the last.


I Am the Last
by Grant Spencer

I am the last, the only, and the soon to die lonely.
The sole survivor of the cataclysm.
Religions called it Judgement Day;
I call it the end.
The earth changed rapidly, so did we.
Looting parties filled the streets.
The innocent fled,
the old hid.
But there was no point in looting,
no point in running,
no point in hiding.
I am the only.
The only left to witness deserts to forest.
The only to watch the sun rise and set.
The only to travel a lifeless land.
The only to remember the forgotten,
But I soon will be forgotten.

I Am the Last
by Charlie “Bird” Coe

All the senses were tingling
Yet, I couldn’t control any of them.
It was like waiting for the
relief of consciousness, during a nightmare
I was very aware I wouldn’t wake up from.
Frigid air chilled and created goosebumps on my
bare bruised limbs.
I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.
Condensed water dropped off my boney
fingertips from my emaciated arms.
Dust, fog, and broken windows was all to see.
My mind wouldn’t let me believe I was the last one.
So I searched...And found no one.
But my mind didn’t let me choose reality.
I kept going but could barely take steps.
My feet, the color of mud, were torn, and splintered.
There was no outlet to complain or cry to.
No one to tell me I would be alright.
I was completely alone.
Just me and the corpse of what I once considered home.
Wrecked.
I had no choice but to end it there.
I was finished.