Status Updates From A Family of Dreamers

from "chickadee"

one being's apocalypse is another's
good morning.

aren't we all just the representations
of many beginnings and endings?

From "mclean drive,"

we are only loved
the way spring loves
fres flowers.

even in endings,
there is renewal.

i break open myself,
to form new rivers.

some people burn like wildfires
fast and bright,
destroying everything in their path.

yet in their wake
wildfires make room
for new life.

in my dreams
i watch fireweed grow out of burnt tree trunks
watch my friends turn beautiful
as the ash settles

My see-through skin
soaks up the sun,
and i am made anew. (from "Wildfire")

the poem "pahkwêsikan" is a two-page spread, pp 68–69, and it was reading it that got me to buy the book. But it's not a good poem to quote; you need to read it in its entirety :-)

I'm loving this collection.

from "aunty, how do you say unrequited in our language?"

you missed the lesson
about the impossibility of
loving someone until they love
you the way you want them to

From "nothing is ever simple"
neither of us were into each other
but we were into
not being alone
and the affirmation of kissing.

emptiness is a space
two people
can fill.

From "kiyâm"

my memories will exist in my daughters'
dreams and their daughters' dreams and their
daughters' dreams.
just like my mothers' exist in mine.

From "counting teeth"

i have tangled my fingers
in the hair of others
searching for signs of life.

...

i miss the sound of snow
falling on snow.

From "Kîskatinâw interlude pt. II"

i wish there were a better way to say
that i am jealous of a river.

From "give 'em hell, iskwew"

in kokum's purse she has the same shade of red
lipstick that mom wears
she applies a heavy layer
and kisses a tissue to blot
places it back into her bag.

red lips left like a fingerprint.

Lori, i think kokum has room
in her purse for all of us.

From "Ceremony"

touch your spine.
is it there?

touch your lungs.
are they okay?
now pull out your ribcage.

cut your hair and weave a mat with the strands.
stretch your skin over your bones and enter
your shelter.

light a fire, never let it go out.

from "wanisinowin"

she laughs when i say i can smell the seasons change
but we wake up to frosty mornings caught in
low sunlight.
the birds know it will snow soon,
the leaves are starting to point down.

...

the northern lights are stairways to a final home
and they've been dancing a long dance
making room in constellations for souls to rest.

Really loving these poems.

From "my body of muskeg":

swampland doesn't heal
it regenerates
and makes the dead
anew

from "âstam"

they don't understand
how much we brawl and clash
and fight with nails and teeth
only to get told
that we didn't fight hard enough
that we didn't do enough
to someone doing enough to us.

from "grandpa-on-the-farm"

we walk through the bush
spending most of our time in silence
teaching me that some conversations aren't
about talking

...

one hot summer, the pond dried up and the
tadpoles were drying up too.
bucket by bucket, we carried them to his
rainwater barrel.

my dad and him knew they weren't going to
make it ...

but he helped me carry dead tadpoles to fresh
water anyway.

from "grandma-on-the farm"

your hands pulling up chickweed,
making popsicle-stick cabins,
teaching me how to embroider hummingbirds
and delicate pink roses
onto white cotton

...

there's no way to hold this grief
it never ends
it sits in my lungs
and tightens them.

...

you made the darkest parts of growing up the
brightest.

"more than human"

she speaks in her language to prairie crocuses, to forget-me-nots, to chokecherries, to the paper birch.

From "kiskatinâw interlude pt 1"

i wonder what it feels like to be both a mighty
and tender thing?
...
she is so gentle in parts
and so vicious in others

from "Transference":

my body and her guests
have taught me how to survive
and that is a beautiful thing

from the second poem, "letting go":

"it's the time i fell into the
moberly and thought i was drowning. my body
took over to swim us back to shore. it's looking
back, exhausted and panting, to see the ghost
of myself sinking to the bottom of the lake.

Whoa, from the very first poem, "A brief celebration":

(excerpts)

same, please remember
that you're not just a house
built of grief.

this body is song,
it is poetry.

you are not a secret
whispered into your own mouth

...

you need to stop
cutting down your own trees
to build a home for someone else.

...

sam,
sometimes the letting go comes at the beginning.