artist : kari percival
from Far North Beast Ghosts the Clearing
The truth is
I have mud on my hands
from digging roots
The truth is
I brought them to you
It is the truth
I worked to get them
and complained
while digging them up
The truth is
once I got back here
and saw your face
it didn't matter,
that work
Little snail
curled up
leaving a snail shape
in the blanket
when I lift you
If I popped out of the snow
with ten crows
tied to the top
of my head
you still would not wake
deepest sleeping one
I've ever seen
I'm no owl
don't you believe it
Just because my big
feather face
is so round
when you wake,
don't believe
I'll fly away
in the morning?
There's things I do
There's things I do
in happiness
of your arrival
Today I was out
stooping my shoulders
in the lily-pad water
with moose
O-HA!
so happy
it was all I could think
to do
Crow
sit down
shut up
can't you see
who's sleeping?
It's her
just born and not ready
to hear your crow noises yet
Sit down
shut up
I can't travel
away from you
rolling pine cone
Each time I go to leave
my shoes hide
in your dreams
All the warm nights
sleep in moonlight
keep letting it
go into you
do this
all your life
do this
you will shine outward
in old age
the moon will think
you are
the moon
Wild turkeys
dance
on a mound of earth
and the moles
under them
say
"We know the earth
is loud
with turkeys again"
But you,
not-yet-born,
when I tap my fingers
on the mound over you
do you know who dances?
Old turtle
walked this far
to see
Who-woke-up-here
I'll pick you up
to see
Well,
here she is
wrinkled as you are
_____________________
The Wishing Bone Cycle
gathered & translated by Howard Norman
Narrative Poems from the Swampy Cree Indians
Ross-Erikson 1976
One time
all the noises met.
All the noises in the world
met in one place
and I was there
because they met in my house.
My wife said, "Who sent them?"
I said, "Fox or Rabbit,
yes one of those two.
They're both out for tricking me back today.
Both of them
are mad at me.
Rabbit is mad because I pulled
his brother's ear
and held him up that way.
Then I ate him.
And Fox is mad because he wanted
to do those things first."
"Yes, then it had to be one of them,"
my wife said.
So, all the noises
were there.
These things happen.
Falling-tree noises were there.
Falling-rock noise was there.
Otter-mud- sliding noises was there.
All those noises, and more,
in my house.
"How long do you expect to stay?"
my wife asked them. "We need some sleep!"
They all answered at once!
That's why now my wife and I
sometimes can't hear well.
I should have wished them all away
first thing.
