After the Aleut
Say a woman once stepped
from volcano steam, or a man
from the sea, desiring
to live among us.
Or that the storms once settled
leave drift logs and whale
for kin to apportion — even
volatile forces nurturing,
who would claim they are not related?
Tanaang Awaa, Aleut storytellers
began: This is a creation
of my country. Each tale
a twining of familiar
and strange, and at each telling
the lit faces, the lamps
drinking from their own
darkness, the everyday
and ancient rewoven.
Listen, even now wind
tries the door. Cold presses
its face to the glass, only the window's
delicate lacing of breath between us.
Say the wind envies and would remain,
that cold too steals
around our stove for this reason. Wood enough
for the night and more
beached and curing in the blasts. Imagine
the cabinet's rattling, this pulsing
of the floor as dancing.
___________________
Jerah Chadwick
Story Hunger
Salmon, 1999
