on this wave of ten-thousand-year
old moraine sheltered
by grandmother pines planted
by long-ago school children
this land loved by the Anishinaabe
bow down
give wordless greetings
silent thanks
she who is bigger
than boundaries
greater than nations
remember her
honour her
bend and weave as basket
willow ripple
flow with water and air
listen for unlooked-for
lessons attend the tender
shoots’ teachings
respect the elders
cornucopians past
they saw abundance
if only at times in dreams
from wood bone hide reed
they dreamed into being
drums and flutes to praise
forest marshland antlered buck
lands without title
but not without name
common and plain
were gardens for human hands
entitled settlers farmed
tilled up the green teachers
and sowed in their place
rows of leggy beggars
will I call the willow ‘mine’?
can you own the water
that washes you clean?
the air that bathes the earth?
may we own even the land
that shifts and slips
though it holds a stake
for the duration
of a few generations?
