“Arctic Avian”

Lapland Longspur

Saturday Poem

I was built by inherited hungers. This is not a poem that names them.

Kimberly Blaeser

i.
As a body politic we take up space in their ledgers.
Yes, my relatives are the salvage bodies of history.

We have ways they do not approve of.
How we feed ourselves for one:

I have been taught where to find the winter cache of squirrels—
and how to walk away.

As we walk, my brother quiets me:
you cannot tell stories until you visit the places where they make their homes.

Father said the garden song calls the pollinators—
and we must sing in tune.

Nimaamaa said leave some for the spirits and the little people
(and what she meant was we are small in the green frayed body of belonging).

We learn from makwa, from maa’ingan—sometimes, even from Nanaboozhoo.

By this I mean not everything tattered is ruined.

ii.
They believe I was built of equations for gain.
(This poem is not an anthem.)

We still follow picto-spirits,
animal tracks, and seed paths:

Not all of our tools have price tags.

Not all of our safeguards are weapons

You will not find wild game in our lexicon.

Ask yourself—are we the meat they covet?

Find out more about this poem, and this poet.

Friday Poem

As Girl

Annie Wenstrup

At six being a girl meant Tinkerbell
nail polish and pointed, pink Barbie shoes.
Sequined fairy wands and slippers that fell
off my feet when I ran. Outside the blue
sky a backdrop for green grass, the sweet
gum tree that was home base. Everything caught
my eye and sparkled. Rain-freshened earthworms,
armored rollie-pollies, and firefly dots.
At night the television played the news.
Its cyclopean eye returned my stare.
The goat-like pupil reflected a parade
of women and girls like ewes. Fair
and lovely. I thought they were adored.
Later, I was not a girl anymore.¹

^{1. Stardate 2373, Earthdate 12.25.2021: I watch the crew stand on deck and chart a course around
the asteroid. I want Roddenberrian optimism, but I worry that one of us misunderstands a
time-paradox. I worry one of us misunderstands humanoids.}

^{The rerun ends and another documentary begins. Onscreen
a model James Webb unfolds its mirrors}

^{like petals}

Reblog from Ten Bears

Wodin’sday Waste of Words …

All the links are worthy; today I’m partial to both the one about a Trump-proof climate action Pres. Biden could take that would benefit the entire world, and the story about the “Indian peach”.

Tuesday Poem

Amber McCrary

Stories

You are a Diné woman
A cosmic energy of earth and sky
Nihimá Nahasdzáán
Azhé’é Diyiní

Winter is over
So, we put our stories in the drawer
Then we take them out for the next winter

It is said stories are only told in the winter
So, the bears and snakes do not hear them

My father is not a traditional man
But he grew up as a traditional ashkii yázhí
He speaks the tongue of the sky and earth

of our people
He knows the ways of our land
But denies it all

One day I tell him
about watching coyote and lizard
stories as a young girl in boarding school
in my Navajo culture class

I tell him excitedly how the videos are now on youtube
but I still don’t understand them
because the videos are only in Navajo

I show him the cute coyote and lizard video
in hopes he will translate for me
He stops me the first ten seconds in
And tells me I shouldn’t watch it

Not because he doesn’t believe in cultural preservation
We are only supposed to watch and tell those stories during the winter, he says
Ohhhhhh, I say as I close the app

All the years my dad talks down on our traditions
I find it interesting, he still abides by the way of the seasons
because he knows snake and bear might hear

Or maybe he said it for other reasons

More about this poem and this poet here.

Monday’s Poem

(Someone must have wished for Summer before it’s even Winter?)

Sufficient

Ina Coolbrith

Citron, pomegranate,
Apricot, and peach,
Flutter of apple-blows
Whiter than the snow,
Filling the silence
With their leafy speech,
Budding and blooming
Down row after row.

Breaths of blown spices,
Which the meadows yield,
Blossoms broad-petaled,
Starry buds and small;
Gold of the hill-sides,
Purple of the field,
Waft to my nostrils
Their fragrance, one and all.

Birds in the tree-tops,
Birds that fill the air,
Trilling, piping, singing,
In their merry moods, —
Gold wing and brown wing,
Flitting here and here,
To the coo and chirrup
Of their downy broods.

What grace has summer
Better that can suit?
What gift can autumn
Bring us more to please?
Red of blown roses,
Mellow tints of fruit,
Never can be fairer,
Sweeter than are these.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 17, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More about this poem, and this poet on the page.

Sunday Poetry

To Wahilla Enhotulle

Alexander Posey 1873 –1908

^{(To the South Wind)}

O Wind, hast thou a sigh
Robbed from her lips divine
Upon this sunbright day—
A token or a sign?

Oh, take me, Wind, into
Thy confidence, and tell
Me, whispering soft and low,
The secrets of the dell.

Oh, teach me what it is
The meadow flowers say
As to and fro they nod
Thro’ all the golden day.

Oh, hear, Wind of the South,
And whispering softer yet,
Unfold the story of
The lone pine tree’s regret.

Oh, waft me echoes sweet
That haunt the meadow glen—
The scent of new-mown hay,
And songs of harvest men;

The coolness of the sea
And forest dark and deep—
The soft reed notes of Pan,
And bleat of straying sheep.

Oh, make me, Wind, to know
The language of the bee—
The burden of the wild
Bird’s rapturous melody;

The password of the leaves
Upon the cottonwood;
And let me join them in
Their mystic brotherhood.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 16, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

More about this poem, and this poet here.

“Grassland Secret” American Bird Conservancy

(WP isn’t allowing Tags, except the provided suggested tags. So, Bird Conservancy, Habitat Conservation, Bird Song.)

LeConte's Sparrow

Poem-a-Day: Miscarriage

Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Gauzy film between
evergreens is a web

of loss. Get closer. Reach
to touch the shimmering

gossamer and your finger
pushes through. Remember

filling that space with desire?
Someone else might grieve

the spider who abandoned
this home; others grow anxious

waiting for a deer’s walk
to wreck it. But you—

you grieve the net of thought
spun inside your own womb:

intricate and glossy and strong.

More about this poet and this poem here.

Reblog from Ten Bears

There is a link within: Laugh Out Loud ~ Hurricane Season May Not Be Over Yet for Florida, (I’m not laughing because Scottie, Ron, and likely readers are in FL, but this is some info for preparation.) The linked page uses Accuweather, who I personally disdain because when they’re timely is when they borrow the info from the National Weather Service, in this case, here. This is no disparagement of Ten Bears, who gives superlative information, especially on the subject of climate, environment, and weather. Anyway, because it’s about FL, there are those links, and below is the blog entry, which is its usual excellence. Recall I mentioned a while back that many links are “Easter eggs”; there are some of those within.