poetry spirit woman
here i am, nokomis
i am here
walking behind
following
tracking your steps
i hear you, nokomis
softly singing
your voice
dancing on the tips
of the birch trees
once burned into my memory
long before i passed
through the stars
songs to the earth
songs for my heart
reclaiming
my forgotten ways
here i am, nokomis
i am here
spirit woman
touch me
i am
āwoman from the south windā
Sharon L. White
Sharon L. White is a member of the Wolf Clan and the Leech Lake Band of the Ojibwe. She is an artist, writer and poet, musician, businesswoman and community leader. She is the publisher and editor of the Beaver Tail Journal, a Native American creative writersā journal. She is also a book illustrator of When Beaver Was Very Great which was nominated for Minnesotaās State Book Award. She operates Little Bay Arts & Crafts Co-op and designs web pages and commercial art.
Rez Times- Three
1) I thrive on mamaās warmth
and work
a newborn spider
i sit at her feet
on cool green grass
under the birch trees
she makes
the laws of the universe:
sundogs speak of cold weather
toties1 sing one snow and spring is born
āthatās what the old Indians know,ā she says
and the old Indian
aunties make soup down the road
grammas tell stories in the next house
uncles split wood in the bush behind our house
grampas turn soil south of the sugar maples
every direction, door & window
leads to a woman
who knows my great-grandfather
to a man who carries babies
the oldest sacred stories
hands
holding the threads
of the universe
together
2) i know the difference between
me & straight women
but motherās twisted rigid thoughts
set leghold traps
to crack my bones
good-intentioned relatives
hope to skin me
tan my hide
sew my smoked
skin to their feet
as moccasins to be worn
at a marriage ceremony
i refuse to dance
instead i leave a piece of flesh behind
just so i can walk away
3) fifteen years later
the silence of the bush
(broken only by the rattle of leaves
and dry crow wings flapping)
rises from my pores and says
weāre still here if you come back
i canāt
i want nothing more than to rest
my feet
on your dark soil
or hear the stories
of my auntieās death
and the many births
while i lie
in bed listening to the cityās hum
poplar treesā
luminescent leaves
and glistening bark
call to me
i remember their ashes
make the best corn soup
i am hungry
always hungry
i think i hear
that sound like rain
hitting the sidewalk:
snow snakes2 travelling slick
and quick on hard packed snow
and i turn my head
expecting to see
polished wood flying
down the street
nothing
nobody reaches for me like the rolling hills
nobody misses me like the wide, slow river
nothing calls me like the silence
Susan Beaver
I am an out and proud Mohawk lesbian from Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve. I recently completed my studies in Creative Writing at the Enāowkin International School of Writing. My work appears in The Colour of Resistance and A Piece of My Heart: An Anthology of Lesbians of Colour. Iāve also published in the Rebel Girlsā Rag and Fireweed Feminist Quarterly in Toronto.
Poetry as Ceremony
This quintessential Spirit: voices often penetrate our spoiled, scarred psyches and force thoughts to materialize, expressing themselves in creative forms: song, dance, music, art, literature. These creations provide us with a sense of interconnection, a sense of being. They give us proof of what we all seem to crave the most: love and hope.
Ceremony, a necessary act to obtain or regain balance with the earth, replenishes her love for humankind. The purpose of ceremony is to integrate: to unite one with all of humankind as well as the realm of the ancestors, to blend one with all of creation.
I have found a deepening connection to the land through experiencing poetry. The land where my ancestors lived and died for thousands of years. The land fed with the skin, bones, and flesh of those who have gone before me. The s...