Oh Hiawatha how you lend my heart to sadness
How you’ve been so great and noble
To your finest friends and people
How your handmade birch canoe
Rose and fell within the waters
How your willow bow and arrow
So skilled and faithful fed you
But in spite your faithful service
Your ever fearless journey
Dear sweet Minnehaha
Sent off to the blessed land
From a winter hunger fever
From her life so taketh your heart.
And loneliness then cometh
Though we all know just as seasons
So must come and go our good friends
Chibiabos, Kwasind and all kinfolk
And so we must take to remember
Four nights we must take care to
Send them off with mindful firelight
Four nights must we wake to stoke
Campfire for their journey.
How so easy it is to forget
All your deeds of strength and honour
Clearing rivers of their boulders
Catching Nahma, the sturgeon
In unnecessary tumult,
Fighting gravely the Pearl Feather
Fighting Megissogwon
That lived past the black pitch-water
Where fiery serpents gathered,
How Kahgahgee tried to
Take out Hiawatha’s corn fields
But how Hiawatha captured
Kahgahgee, the raven
And killed all the crows who plotted
With Kahgagee to
Cause destruction to his people.
So then why did you have to
Sail off in the Big-Sea-Water
Gitche Gumee shining brightly
So no more the sun would rise
Brightly on your wigwam, Hiawatha?
Tag: birch
Whistling (day 1065)
Today there is a sign,
A window of an opening
Whistling softly,
Dragging at my conscience.
I acknowledge it.
I sit cross-legged
To experience its frequencies
Reverberate my lifeline.
This lesson is wordless,
Perched upon low hanging ledges
Of spring’s naked birch trees.
I imagine smoke
Wafting its sacred essence.
And my peace and gratitude
Flows mingling with the wind,
Vibrating to wordless words
Whistling through my conscience.
The Sapling and I (day 919)
Windy meadows that long ago
Were stripped of all their life:
Elegant firs, long needled pine
And birch that peels around.
They’ve all been reaped
Into a heap;
Grinding and turning
Paving and spreading
Strip malls and sidewalks.
All in the name of progress.
In belief of and for
Settlers heading west.
But where was I at these round tables
Where was my voice of reason?
Was I asked for my steady thoughts
To protect our mother’s children?
For now I am to blame.
Here to suffer
To pull at breath and
Leave my anguish at the door;
Kick off my factory shoes,
Step into my factory warmth,
And yawn my factory toil.
I am not anymore the savior sun;
A strong branch upon a tree
Deep within the forest.
But I am a sapling reaching up
Into the sky above.
A sign of life, natures life:
An orb of sweet Gaia
I Walked Alone Today (day 659)
I walked alone today
Through a snowy path
Amongst birch trees
That have no leaves
Pine and Fir are there
Ensuring nature stays green
Along this path
I walked today
Thoughts sprung forth
Delight… dismay
Yet still hard to think
As I wandered further
Battling 20 cm or so
It snowed today
Coming down in droves
Falling lightly on my mind
As I passed along
The spot where the old
Lady fell the other day
I walked alone today
As if transfixed by spell
Lightness of air
Easing the worried thoughts
Fluttering through my hair
And landing on the tips
Of every particle reaching out
To helping me on my way