Poems of life and legend

1.

Can you hear them?

The steady beating of drums?

Oiled leather, blessed by elders,

Puncturing a rhythmic beat into the air.

A heartbeat.

We dance our dances borrowed from the Earth,

To the heartbeat of the drums.

Beings of Earth.

Of spirit, heart, mind, and body.

Of fire, water, earth, and air.

Can you hear it?

The heartbeat of our mother?

The steady pulsating tones

Of the Earth?

2.

My mother gave me brothers:

The wolf who sings to the glory of the moon,

The hawk who glides through the vast skies.

The wind who sings along grasses and trees.

The pines who bend and groan along the wind.

She gave me sisters:

The deer that dances along the grass,

The fox that laughs in the shadowy woods.

The river that always changes her songs,

The loamy earth that gives us precious nourishment.

My mother asks for nothing.

And yet I braid her hair of sweetgrass.

I thank her for my brothers, and my sisters.

I thank her for the warmth of her fires,

For the sweetness of her saps.

I sing songs to her breath,

Laughing as the river joins in.

I sing along with the wolf and hawk,

Praising my mother for her bounty.

We gave her a name, our vast mother.

A simple name,

But hers.

Aki. She is

Nimaamaa aki.

3.

Stitch by stitch,

I try my best to conjoin soft leather.

Moccasins, or a medicine bag?

Tiny glass beads sat in a tiny glass dish,

Waiting to be bonded with the leather.

Moccasins or medicine bag?

The scrap of leather is butter soft,

Thin like silk and easy to tear due to age.

My stitches are clumsy,

My fingers red from needle pricks.

But I kept on trying.

Moccasins or medicine bag?

My scrap of leather is small,

No bigger than a page from a schoolbook.

Pale yellow,

Butter soft.

Moccasins of medicine bag?

Moccasins?

Or a medicine bag?

4.

When the soldier came,

We took our babies and ran.

Our husbands, our fathers, our brothers

Fought and rebelled

So that we can live.

When the soldiers burnt down our homes,

We wept crystalline tears as we ran.

Our brothers then fell.

Our fathers fell,

Our husbands and mothers also fell.

We ran with our babies,

Holding their little bodies to our chests.

And the soldiers followed.

They whipped our bodies as they passed,

Whipped us as they rode by.

They whipped us with the reins of their horses.

They then took our babies; and ripped them from our arms.

And we wept even more.

Even when they left us mothers and sisters

Screaming for our babies,

They never looked back.

And our babies were lost to us.

5.

My barrette is gone.

My brother's knife is missing.

My shoes are hidden,

My daughter’s brush has vanished.

The dog leads are under the stove,

The cat’s toys are in the trees.

Tiny needles unseen prick our feet.

Hairs are tugged and tied to leaves and twigs.

“Who took my headphones?” I pondered.

“Who took my ring?” my gishiime asked.

“Where did the flower petals come from?” my daughter asks.

Little prints in the flour, tiny handprints in the butter.

Tiny jackets left by cat dishes

Teeny arrows carved from apple splinters.

“Hay’” I growled.

“Wegonen?” my brother questions.

“We have little people.”

Little tricksters, stalking around our home,

Fairies, elves, brownies.

Little people,

little thieves.

Little menaces.

6.

1831,

A river swallowed their dogs.

Dogs of those forcefully relocated,

Left on the banks as their loved ones,

Ferried away,

Unallowed to bring them along.

The Choctaw held the sick,

Held the newborns and near-dead,

Remained stoic as their little brothers,

The dogs,

Left behind.

Cruel, cruel men,

Relocating, evicting

Choctaw from lands greedily coveted.

The dogs wept,

The bellowed and howled, confused

Wanting their families, their homes

An unforgiving river,

Uncaring men.

And those dogs plunged.

Such spite of the whites,

Uncaring, impassive,

As little bodies fought the river.

They fought to join the Choctaw,

Their brothers and sisters

Of the Great Spirit.

They fought the cruelty of the river,

Of the foreigners.

And they lost,

Claimed by the cold water.

7.

It was tall.

Tall, thin,

A heart carved from ice.

Insatiable,

Greedy.

The color of ash, of death

Thin, thin body,

All bones and skin.

Towering high along the crowns of trees.

It hungers,

Bloodthirsty and gluttonous.

It taunts,

It teases,

It beckons over the

Anishinaabe.

Hungry,

So very hungry.

Its feast of Ojibwe flesh is never enough.

Ash grey,

A head of empty sockets,

Of bare bone and antler.

Long jaw serrated with yellow deer teeth.

Blackened hands, black by rotted blood.

Hush now!

It comes,

The wendigo is hunting.

Gaazootaw, gaazootaw.

8.

He had always been old.

Dark copper skin withered and weathered

From wind, work, and age.

A head of silver and white hair,

Neatly combed under an old

Trucker hat.

He never was a trucker though.

He wore dark glasses that turned his wizened face

Into that of an owl; eyes magnified and gripping.

He gave me a bag of tobacco,

the dried herb smelling sweet

And sent me outside to exchange it for sage.

He gave me pennies for flowers

And venison for a treat.

82 years old.

Older than my grandfather’s lifespan.

The last of his brothers.

They say COVID claimed him for the

Great Spirit.

I say it was his age. COVID probably helped...

And the Sun welcomed him home.

Farewell, Nookum.

RIP: Duncan Standing Rock

9.

When you ask an Indian

“Which way?”

They smile and point with their lips.

10.

With this hand,

Painted red,

Raised high,

I declare vengeance.

I declare vengeance for my lost sisters.

Justice for my lost brothers.

I declare vengeance for the lost wives

For the lost mothers.

A red hand on my mouth,

Hazel eyes forcibly lax with grief,

I wear this red with my head held high.

For it is vengeance

Against our enemy.

11.

Shy little wolf,

Peeking from behind lodgepoles.

Little wolf,

Nipping as rabbits and deer.

Mai’ingan, gishiime...

I will borrow your voice,

Borrow your playful canter.

When I use your fur to shield my infants,

I thank you for your gift of sacrifice. When I use your teeth to decorate my hides,

I thank you for your power of strength.

Your rich meat shall fill my pot,

Fill the bellies of my “cubs.”

Your bones become my needles,

your sinew my thread.

Shy little wolf,

Miigwech.

12.

Oil.

Flour.

Salt

Milk.

It started with cruel

Provisions:

Rancid lard, rotted and foul.

Flour infested with mealworms and weevils.

But we prospered.

Now,

It is a staple food.

A traditional food,

Despite the horror accompanying

The delicacy.

We make it for weddings,

Fry it for funerals

Fry for birthdays

Make it for celebrations.

Fluffy,

Crispy,

Slightly sweet.

Topped with sugar and cinnamon

Or fried meat and beans.

It is frybread.

It is frybread...

13.

They tried to encamp us,

They tried to poison us.

Gave us horrid diseases.

But we survived.

We kept on fighting.

We fought to celebrate our dances

We fought to keep our homes,

We fought to protect our babies

Our mothers

Our brothers.

And we are still fighting.

We are still here.

We will always be here.

We were yesterday,

We are today,

We will tomorrow,

For we are

Anishinaabekaa.