Working Title: Manitou

 

I have met the sea and
been a little in love,
heard the mermaids sing
and hoped it was for me.
I have been a little in love
with the smell of brine
and fish things

 

I have put my body in the sea,

been rocked ‘fore and aft

on its swells; ridden them

back to land and sand sharp with shells.

It stung my eyes,

left a rime of salt

that made my hair lank

and gritty,

was full of stinging things

that do not love me.

 

I have ridden upon the sea

and looked down into a blue

so deep

there are neither words enough

nor courage to contemplate.

I have been among those

who seek to conquer

from her breast.

The depth was terrifying,

the hull too thin.

 

I have overflown the sea,

looked down through tiny windows

and been in awe—

and some fear—

of what it brings

and what it takes away.

 

Always looking down.

Always apart and not a part.

 

I have been on islands

inhabited the places of salt marsh

and brackish delta,

of dunes and tire tracks in sand,

of sandpipers and plovers and wild horses

and strange gifts.

I have felt the singing

of unknown and alien things

and been a little in love with the wildness.

 

They are great,

yes,

and they are mighty,

yes.

 

But they are not my Great Lakes.

The oceans and sea and gulf,

too arrogant,

too brash,

too sure of their power.

They overwhelm with their promise

of seeing the horizon,

the curve of the earth,

the stars overhead

in a place with no light.

 

Their names do not sing,

not like Mishii’gan or Mishigami,

not like Odaawaawi-gichigami,

not like Anishinaabewe-gichigami.

They have no manitou

that sing to me.

They do not speak a language

I long to understand.

 

Mishigami is unhappy today,

deep green and lashing out

under a heavy sky.

She compels the spirits of the wind

and the spirits of the sand

to dance.

 

I think I understand manitou.

 

There is manitou in the sough of the wind

that blows so hard,

in the sting of sand on my cheek,

in the wash of wave over the pier

and manitou in the wash of wave

when it empties back into the river

and, yes, in the wash of wave upon rocks

and the wash of wave upon the sand.

Each their own manitou.

 

There is manitou in the river,

and in the swell of the river,

swells that rise and do not break

where they come from the lake.

There is manitou in the flowing

into the river

dancing with the manitou of flowing out.

 

It sings, all the manitou,

in one voice that is

the symphony of the storm—

which also has manitou of its own.

It sings beckons says

Listen.

I, who was born here

but am not a native.

 

If I stand in the place

where all manitou meet,

if I feel the sting

the cold

the howl

the crash

the wash

the hush

hush

hush

 

hush

 

I might hear 

my manitou wake and sing,

and begin to heal

from oceans.