MORNING STAR
i.m. Margaret Seelye Treuer
There is the fabric of the poem & there is
the continuum of life
as with Ojibwe mother & wife
& federal magistrate Margaret Treuer, otherwise
Giiwedinookwe (North Wind Woman) –
first American Indian
female judge in the country
(requiescat in pace, strong dancing one).
& I can’t always mesh the two threads
right – in poem, & with life
with my dull carving knife
rough-shaping sets of Minny-figureheads
for meanings I can’t quite project.
& in a one-room cabin she
grew up, ambitious to be
of service from the start – & heck,
she married a refugee from Nazi Germany
– Scattergood while you can
laboring man, & chairwoman
in labor. Adamant to bring out of many
threads, & ivory husks of sister birch
one floatable resilient bark
or local replica of Ark…
wild rising, riding on waters of Ur-church
or paddling Churnagogue… to lift
the mournful tapestry
from scorn & travesty
to something like the glowing starry gift
*
it was meant to be, in the beginning
& she loved her Native ways
served as mentor & guide
teaching her children how to rice & sing
& hunt, tap maple, living off the land.
I was searching for a figure
like Pocahontas, Morning Star
stepping up to dance out of Gravesend
someone like starry Virgo or Corn Mother
to represent (in my rough-
sketchy way) just enough
for my own District of Columbia (another,
older coulombe, a deeper-down coo-coo).
& as le printemps approaches
& spring tiptoes on lady’s
slippers through the forest, & you
sense the great symphony slowly expand
& breathe, toward end of May
a chord of Restoration Day
sounds in my heart & over the land –
when a glossolalia of babbling Pentecost
races glittering across
the coppery brook, & as
we rise in spirit toward that almost
ineffable perfection of the Everlasting
Thunder-life… we sing
of grace & thanks-giving;
our maypole wisdom-song we bring.
3.21.20
