Copper Yearning (eBook)

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix

Proem: Wellspring: Words from Water 2

i. GEOGRAPHIES OF LONGING

Dreams of Water Bodies/ Nibii-wiiyawan Bawaadanan 4

Of Eons and Epics 5

Please withhold koans and questions 8

Slippage 9

Cadastre, Apostle Islands 11

Angles of Being 13

Talking Rock 14

Pica 15

Winter Transfigurations 16

After Taiwan 18

Caption 19

Words on Yearning 20

ii. HUNGER FOR BALANCE

Of Fractals and Pink Flowering 23

This Stranger’s Beauty 25

Dreams of Water Bodies, Two 26

BWCA Haiku 28

What I Believe 29

A Litany of Other 30

What the Rain Remembers 32

Becoming Turtle 33

Tincture 34

Another Intimation 35

Endaso-Dagwaagin 36

Manoominike-giizis 38

iii. FRAYED HISTORIES

A Subjectifixation Cento for Two Voices 40

Of Nalusachito and the Course of Rivers 42

Verse Drama One: Pagan 44

Verse Drama Two: Surveyor, 1849 45

Rattle 46

1850. Sandy Lake, Minnesota. 47

Mochi, Prisoner of War 49

Estate of Chief Black Kettle (1813-1868) 50

Sutra, in Umber 51

Summary Tabulations Descriptive of One Hundred and

Fifty Chippewa Indian Families on the White Earth

Reservation 52

Ancient Hunger 53

Captivity 54

iv. ALCHEMY INHERITED

On Climbing Petroglyphs 56

Veteran’s Day 57

Fire, After Fire 58

Bawaajige 59

Photosynthesis 61

Exit #135 62

Speaking, Like Old Desire 64

Fatima at the Bab el-Bahrain Souk 65

Reliquary 66

Regarding the Care of Homeless Children 68

The Ritual of Wishing Hands 70

Sting Like a Bee 72

When We Sing Of Might 73

The Solace of Forgotten Races 75

Again the Night 76

Recipe for Remembrance 77

That Buffalo Hair Fedora 78

v. BLACK ASH AND RESISTANCE

Unlawful Assembly 81

The Smallest Shaft of Light 82

Ikwe-niimi: Dancing Resistance 84

This House of Words 85

Mooningwanekaaning-minis 86

“Because We Come From Everything” 87

Tribal Mound, Earth Sutra 89

Of the many ways to say: Please Stand 90

Poem for a Tattered Planet: If the Measure is Life 91

Dispersion: A Treatise 94

Eloquence of Earth 95

Prairie Thunder 97 Solidarity: A Cento 99

Sacred Stone Camp 101

vi. REFRACTIONS OF SPIRIT

Minobimaadizi 104

A Song for Giving Back 105

When Loving is the Yield 107

Voices in the Desert, Bahrain 2010 108

Before Pearl Square 109

Shiteet, the Smallest Pearl 110

Canyon on the Edge of Years 111

Senbzura, Held Together by Strings 112

Spirit Dogs 113

Bronze Lumen 116

These Small Turns of Memory 117

Winter Aurora 121

After Words

122

Envoi: Drum Song 124