Odzihozo,
I recognize you for the first time
before
a biting cold glorious sunset,
floating,
doubled in reflection
above
the still waters that dance like flames on the horizon
in
the time of greetings, alamikos, the month of January.
Great
transformer,
you
created yourself from dust,
and
then you created all this land,
a
miracle without equal which goes on,
inside
us and all around us.
And
this lake and its nest
in
these grand and gentle mountains,
the
elders say you created this last,
your
final masterpiece.
And
now you rest,
reflecting
forever
in
your floating throne of rock
the
sublime, serene, spontaneous spiraling
of
the patterns still emerging from your original design.
Perhaps
the famous battles caught your eye,
or
perhaps not –
maybe
the motions of the clouds
mean
more, in the long run.
You
must have sensed the plague,
the
pestilence and poverty
which
fell upon the peoples who first recognized you,
the
centuries of conquest, ongoing.
Today
you must sense the poisons
seeping
from land to lake,
the
acid in the rain,
the
erosion of the shores,
the
warming of the skies,
the
sickness of the soils.
And
yet you float upon and above
the
churning liquid horizon,
and
yet this lake is a shining jewel
precious
to the preservation of all the world,
and
yet your transformations bloom within us still,
calling
us to dance and rest upon horizons,
to
reflect ourselves over water and fire,
to
be buoyant in bitter cold
for
a beauty that burns like a sun within the soul.
I
am writing this to you and to me and to others,
as
a prayer and a poem,
as
a message and a manifesto,
as
prose and as a petition
for
your recognition:
A reminder that you are watching,
not
in judgment
(you
are the transformer, not the redeemer or the revelator)
but
in patience;
for
the ultimate glory of your creation,
which
is you,
which
is us,
and
all of this,
nestled
in the mountains,
upon
this lake once known as bitawbágw, now named Champlain
and
this land once known as ndakinna, now named Vermont.
by QMS, January 2016
