The morning my sisters phoned me
told me she’d gone, I went
up and taught my class
—last of the week
    she’d have wanted me to—
As I went to lock my bike
I heard a warbler and
there it was, yellow
on its branch as nothing else
and I thought of her
                          —naturally—
her bright little soul
perched in a tree.
Easy to imagine.

Three years later on her birthday
I walk with my family, granddaughters
looping the path along the river,
new growth full of every bird,
yellow warblers on branches enough
to spot easily, show the girls
the catbird, towhee, song
sparrow, she loved them all,
loved them for being
birds. Maybe a soul in a tree,
but mainly birds.

You, once river-borne stone,
glacially displaced, an erratic;
found rest in this ancient swale.
Cracked open like a sacrifice
split by rain and ice.
Iron pins thorn your heart like a
prairie rose.

We bow in reverence,
inhale the incense of sage breezes smudging you,
a stoic, cradled in ancient layers.
Native prairie testifies,
centuries of knowing
sod never turned by a plough.

Orange lichens cloak your limestone layers,
we touch your timeless edges
worn by wind, sand, passing buffalo.
We, who pillaged your foundations,
now seek your mystery.

Wise sage, we honour your millennia.
What portent lies ahead?

You elder stone, grounded
before spear grasses emerged
before scavenging beetles turned dung
before regal crocuses quilted your bed
before roaming herds followed fire
before eerie coyotes sang to northern lights
before fluttering grouse drummed their dance
before quarry masters and fences—

before our meagre one-second selves.

one morning I cried to nohkôm
what am I worth now without a man to love me
I sat waiting for an answer from a woman who went home 25 years before my cries
I heard nothing – I looked up
then
the sweet shrill whistle of a bird resting nearby
the wind running its fingers through leaves playing a low murmur
of melody

I noticed how the clouds that never stay were imperfectly shaped
against the blue of sky
I breathed and rested my chin on my hand
I saw the wildness of the grass – greens and yellows growing at their own speed
to reach lengths undefined by each other
I closed my eyes to stop the tears and heard a voice
            you are iskwêw of askiy
            prepared for spring rain when the earth shoots forth with life
and mother’s love starting fresh from the muds of melted ice
you are the heat of summer passion
waking with the sun to dance – to play
long days and short nights when pleasure brings the embrace
of light dreams to lay in the arms of soft land
while ancestors dance brighter than stars
you are ready to let go as you have seen trees free themselves
of the weight of autumn – shrinking back deep to roots to wait for warmth
some days you may be the biting wind of winter
or the cover of snow protecting
you are the single unique snowflake finding its place
to rest on the land
you are a daughter of ôkâwîmâw askiy
your worth cannot be measured by a man
you learn who you are with each day – each moon – each year that passes
you are all of the seasons in spirit
the transitions from warm to cold
from fresh starts to farewells
you know that each mood will pass like an imperfect cloud
that the sun moon and stars will wash color and darkness
over your life in phases
this is who you are
nohkôm carried me long before she went home
she left me this voice for mornings when tears smeared my sight line
leaving doubt and confusion
this morning I woke before light touched the land
I sent prayers on feathery wisps of smoke to nohkôm
thank you for who I am – a daughter of ôkâwîmâw askiy
as the sun crowned the east
I closed my eyes and found my voice

“I thought you were all dead”
Words spoken from a blank canvas
Tainted by their cunning ways
Deception, Death, Despair, Dehumanized
Unrealized; Innocent Ignorance, or is it?
Relatives decimated, to near extinction
What For?
Another’s prosperity
Another’s vanity
eliminate the problem, that’s it!
We are not the problem.
Destruction
Driven by dominance
Real eyes, realize, real lies
What this country is built upon
Chasing paper truths
All for control
Free spirits, humans being
We continue
Reflection unlocks understanding
To heal
One prayer at a time
We rise
We are the Buffalo Nation
We are still here

Although there are several possibilities,
I could not be sure
of the bird’s name in the bird book
(not written by birds,
and me no expert) not to mention the bird’s name
in the bird’s own tongue we could not repeat
for the shape and chisel of sounds

in their language so unlike our own.
I have heard a bird laugh and one full of praise
for the sun and another one’s voice afraid
warning me (or the crow) to stay away
from her nest, and another with a cry so piercing
quiet (I could not let it out of my head) about the spirit
of her species brought low by humans into a gold mine
situation on earth where they’d lived longer than we
had, before the last ice age with their dinosaur cousins.

You moved to pick the green fellow up on the edge
of a shovel (afraid to snap a frightened wing in capturing
her in cupped hands – the bird could have been ‘him,’
the green quite vivid) but he flit to the branch above
and so I think the green soul was merely tired out

after navigating over cities and skyscrapers
confusing lights and changed terrain (a creek
with reeds dug up, now a muddy canal) resting
between flights on his long journey to the south.
Or maybe he ate some seed brittle with glitter
of some fungicide, all that was left
in the combined field. Although
there are several possibilities
we could not be too sure…

A sleek green body light as a feather, hollow-boned
but pulsing spirited with small sad peepers,
half shut and giving up, I feared
as I peered down at her.

pēyakwāw ēsa wīsahkēcāhk kī-pah-pimohtēw wāsakām sākahikanihk. kā-wāpamāt ēsa niska ē-ay-ohpahoyit ēkwa māna kāwī ē-twēhoyit. māmaskātēw.

“tānisi ōma ē-itahkamikisiyēk nisīmitik?” isi-kakwēcimēw ēsa ōhi niska.

“iyaw, ē-takwākik ōma. wīpac ta-pipon ēkwa tāh-tāhkāyāw! ohcitaw piko sāwanohk ta-isi-pimohtēhoyāhk ēkā kita-nipahāskwaciyāhk,” itwēw ēsa awa pēyak niska.

“mahti nīsta! kika-wīcēwitināwāw!” itwēw wīsahkēcāhk.

“māka wiya ēkā ē-otahtahkwaniyan!” itwēw ēsa awa niska.

“hā, tāpwē wēspinac!”

“hāw, cēskwa, kika-māmawi-wīcihitinān,” itwēw awa niska. nitomēw owāhkōmākana ēkwa itēw ta-tah-tahwamāyit wīsahkēcāhkwa omiyāmiyik. ōta tah-tahkwamik ōhi niska: pēyak ostikwānihk, ēkwa ātiht ospitonihk, ēkwa mīna kotaka oskātihk. ēkosi isi-kaskihtāwak ta-pimohtahācik ostēsiwāwa, wīsahkēcāhkwa. ispimihk pāskac ē-itāpiyit ōhi. ē-sāsakicisiniyit.

“ēkāwiya waskawī nistēsē,” itēw ēsa awa niska ostēsa. “kika-kitiskinitinān kīspin waskawīyani!”

“hāw, namwāc nika-waskawīn.” itwēw ēsa wīsahkēcāhk. ēkosi ati-sipwēpihāwak ōki niskak, ē-tahkonācik ostēsiwāwa. miywēyihtam wīsahkēcāhk ayisk wīsta sāwanohk ē-wī-itohtēhot.

kētahtawē kā-pēhtawāt iskwēwa ē-matwē-mōcikihtākosiyit. “kisāstaw ē-pakāsimoyit,” itēyihtam

sēmak waskawīw, ē-kwēskipayihot, ē-kakwē-wāpamāt anihi iskwēwa. mayaw kā-waskawīt, kā-kitiskinikot anihi niska. 

mitoni ē-pakastawēsihk ita ōki iskwēwak kā-pakāsimoyit. kwayask pāhpihik!

ēkwāni namwāc sāwanohk ohci itohtēhow wīsahkēcāhk māka kēyāpic ōki niskak sāwanohk itohtēhowak tahto-takwākin ēkwa tāpiskōc kēyāpic ē-miciminācik wīsahkēcāhk.

Once Wisahkecahk was strolling along, around a lake, when he saw some geese flying up and then landing again. He wondered what they were doing.

“Little brothers, what are you doing?” he asked the geese.

“Well, it’s autumn now, but soon it will be winter and very cold. We must travel south so that we don’t freeze to death,” one of the geese replied.

“Me too! I’ll come with you!” said Wisahkecahk.

“… but you don’t have any wings,” replied the goose.

“Hmm, truly this is tragic.”

“Okay, wait. All together we will help you,” said the goose. So the goose called his relatives and told them, using their mouths of course, to grab a hold of Wisahkecahk’s body. So the geese did just that: one at his head, a few at his arms and others at his legs. In this way, the geese were able to carry their older brother Wisahkecahk: who was facing upwards, he was on his back.

“Don’t move older brother,” said the goose; “If you move, we might accidently drop you!”

“Okay, I won’t move!” Wisahkecahk replied as the geese began to fly away holding on to him, their older brother. Wisahkecahk was glad as he too was going south. 

Suddenly Wisahkecahk heard some women, and it sounded like they were having fun. “Perhaps they are swimming,” he thought.

Quickly he moved, twisting to try to see those women. As soon as he moved, the geese dropped him.

Wisahkecahk fell right into the water where the women were swimming. Truly they laughed at him.

So Wisahkecahk never made it south but still, when migrating, geese fly in this same formation: as if still holding Wisahkecahk.

See the coyote over there?
I asked the woman, who stopped
to watch us watching the coyote
nosing its sore-footed way
through freshly mowed park lawn,
for the moment paying no attention
whatsoever to the fact it had
metamorphosed from wary scavenger
to topic of conversation,
that despite the animal’s casual
ignoring of us, we were
the ones on full alert.

I see it most mornings,
the woman added,
and it does
the same thing – just trots along
and sniffs like a dog
on its daily rounds.

I thought of my usual mental image:
el coyote picking its cautious way
amid deserty spines and stones,
nosing with the care
and learned reflexes
the desert imposes on creatures.

Meanwhile el coyote pounced upon
something in the lush grass
alongside a dense shrub thicket
and in a quick flash of jaws and teeth
dispatched and ate whatever
Nature provided for breakfast.

Lone goose pipes overhead, silent V comes winging two acres behind. I edge toward a pair of Canada Geese settled under a spruce tree near the Forestry Farm parking lot, speaking in low tones to assure them I come in peace. They’re a welcome sight after another hard prairie winter. I’d like to see them closer-up, and they don’t seem to object.

I stop for a moment and wait. I imagine their perspective in high flight, how remote from human troubles they must be up there in the blue. I tell them that I myself fly sometimes in dreams, and may have a glimmer of what it’s like. One night I sailed up to the spire of a cathedral, and looked over a dark panorama, and far below the lights of the chancery blushed, and two priests went in and shut them off.

I take another step, and wait again. I remember one spring on a muddy path beside the river hearing the resounding ke-CHUNK of an ice-shard breaking and plunging into the water. A goose that was resting on it swished with its wings, rose slightly in the air, shifted two feet over and alighted again. I marvelled at the nonchalance. If you have wings and your bottom falls out, lift and re-settle.  

One more step, another pause. The gander grooms himself. The goose tucks her head down beside her wing. Last year above the riverbank I saw a gaggle of geese on a sandbar. I followed a path down and sat near them to watch. A narrow channel of water separated us, so I was of no concern to them, but they quickly detected the two humans coming through the willows at the sandbar’s far end. The lead goose grunted and slid into the river. Three others followed. Within minutes the whole flotilla was facing the breeze. I love their ascensions – and they rose for me and the world was a wild winging honk-a-lonking, divine moment all full of geese.  

Another step. Halfway to the tree now. The gander looks my way, and I linger again.

I have seen geese on the river angling toward a rocky weir on an island, where a hidden brood of goslings waited, and heard how they sat then, trumpeting in the joy of being home. Behold the fowls of the air, they navigate wind and water currents beyond fathoming, and die without protest into human ears…

…and suddenly this gander hurtles toward me hissing, I stumble back, and he’s airborne straight for my head; I whirl and bolt, trip on the pavement, rear up and lurch toward the car peering over my shoulder; the creature lands and stretches his neck like a viper, and my skinned palms and knees begin throbbing, and I see that I’ve torn a hole in my new jeans. 

Yes, a Hindu parable says, God is in the elephant coming toward you – but also in the mahout sitting on the elephant and shouting, Get out of the way, dodo! 

Ganderdander, I have learned, is God’s voice drawing a line: So far, buster, and no farther. 

talk to the hills
               lose your extravagance
         lie down in the horsemint and sage
                                           grass is a window, look through it

                                          choose sentences carefully, pace yourself
the story is long, see how attentive these smiling bones have become
                                                                                 tell them a good one

there is nothing so wonderful as to be heard to the very end
            of what you needed to say
                                                                               and the silence afterward
                                                  the sigh that comes up the valley
                                                                                                    that is applause