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?

Copyright © 2024 by Kimberly Blaeser. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 22, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

Find out more about this poem, and this poet.