Copper Yearning invests itself in a compassionate dual vision—bearing witness to the lush beauty of our intricately woven environments and to the historical and contemporary perils that threaten them. Kimberly Blaeser’s fourth collection of poetry deftly reflects her Indigenous perspective and a global awareness. Through vividly rendered images, the poems dwell among watery geographies, alive to each natural nuance, alive also to the uncanny. Set in fishing boats, in dreams, in prisons, in memory, or in far flung countries like Bahrain, the pieces sing of mythic truths and of the poignant everyday injustices. But, whether resisting threats to effigy mounds or inhabiting the otherness of river otter, ultimately they voice a universal longing for a place of balance, a way of being in the world—for the ineffable.
Jadual kandungan
CONTENTSAcknowledgments 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