Winter

 

Most of the stories about the tribal trickster [naanabozho] are not sacred, wicked, or wise; rather the trickster is eternal motion and transformation in the stories. 

           -------Summer in the Spring, Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories, Gerald Vizenor 

 

 

winter's night

there is something out there

all day and all night the stir

of warm blood and wild impenetrable eyes

inside the little shack

a blaze glows at the cracks

of a cast iron stove while the sun dies

 

across wooded river bluffs

dragging the last bloody blanket

from this lost Wisconsin river valley

 

the starry evening of this day

bankrupts a whole year of beginnings

what belongs to the world

is given back to the world

in a dream that was dreamt centuries ago

by the original thief and murderer

who is out there, waiting,

waiting for bodies, waiting for

me 

 

 ---------------

 

 

The following are journal writings from the 1970's

December 28th, 1975   St. Croix River, Wisconsin

A fly has just been brought to life by several hours of heat furnished by this wood burning stove. So I function as the deceiver. It was waiting for spring and I have made it to live in the dead of winter. Is it a real fly or a dream fly? According to children, it is "real" because it lives. Anything dead is unreal.

 As I watch, it rubs two legs together. I know that I have dreamt this moment, in Wisconsin, in a shack built by my father overlooking the St.Croix River. I have dreamt it and now I am in the process of dreaming it. The fly is a dream fly, it is real in my dream. It has turned itself around on its spot on the wall and I am real in its dream, and in the dream of this forest shaking its branches in the high winter wind. The night time weather dreams I am here, and so truly I shall take another log and place it in the flames, before turning out the light and going to bed, dreaming that I am asleep, dreaming that I am dreaming.

 

Night song:

loss

dream

loss

dream

dream

dreaming

loss

 

chant   chant   chant

chant

chant

chant

 

loss

loss

loss

silver birch, winter, wait...

 

spring

summer

summer

summer                                  

 

The next day

Oh the ecstasy of being alone! Nothing to do but dip into my unconscious, and the river bluffs hold high my heart. My breath rains out of my eyes and the top of my head to the river valley below where time is measured in an arc flowing past my vision.

Having placed myself here, an admitted visitor to my own self, I dedicate an expedition, with a ribbon of windows to look out when thoughts become too intricately tangled.

A bed, a fire, a teapot, a commode, a chair - from one to another I pass, the ceremony dictates itself. My walks by the river and in the fields, border my thoughts with the exact same security of a view framed by a window.

Walking in the morning down by the frozen river, slabs of ice piled up on the banks. Thinking of animal tracks: the snow recorded them as if they all happened at once, a crossing of separate paths that was no meeting at all. Snowflakes accumulate and make something other than themselves, threads weaving a blanket and the act of covering is born. With such cold air, the earth needs a cover. 

Winter is the season of dream, of dens and hibernation. The dream takes form around what is already there, sprinkles images of light and creates pockets of darkness in the forest's feet. Flesh gives way to bone and song to whistle. Tight, strong buds tip the ends of twigs while old leaves sleep in the snow. I walk, breathing in the cold air, and my footsteps seek the earth under the packed snow. My eyes fasten on a leaf, a bright spot moving across the sky, the network of roots exposed where the road has cut into the hill. The question: who is ascending this wooded river road which opens into the field?

 

The second night

Tonight there is a great wind rising and falling outside this shack, this ark in the ocean of sound. The darkness is deeper, winter more thrilling. There is the river, a train and incessantly the wind... and you, Jorge Luis Borges, say there is time? Layers of dream and points of waking, recalling.

The third night

The wind has died down and it is very still. I have made the fire too hot. Simple to remedy. I open the door wide and look out at the night. I was inside most of the day, gathering wood, writing...it seemed it had barely gotten light when night began to fall. It has been the greyest day so far. I gained some satisfaction writing a poem, the inner concentration allowed me to see more vividly and freshly when I got up to look down at the river, seeing so clearly the arrangement of trees, dark tree trunks, snow and the river bank. 

I began my walk at the perfect time: dusk was on the verge. I left a lamp on in the cook cabin, knowing that it would be dark when I got back. Following the road, then letting intuition be my guide, I made for the pine trees, but then turned towards the hills, preferring the white rise of a hill against the grey sky to the darkness of the forest. Trudging up the hill, I seemed to be watching myself, my clumsy booted feet in the snow climbing the hill.

Then the beauty of the hills with stiff, yellow grasses sticking through the snow - Gary's words so perfect: the "belted down prairie." [Gary Nabhan's poetry.] I walked into the white prairie sea, under the fast darkening sky, following a snowmobile path. I looked down and noticed a deer track. It was now fully dusk and I could see nothing clearly, only the deeply familiar shapes I know from walking this land in all seasons. 

When I saw the deer track, I thought, "Yes, this is where the deer are. I should see some now,"  although I had seen no animals other than birds in the past few days. I turned and saw two deer. They stopped and stared, then moved slowly over the far hill. One was smaller and followed, two dark shapes against the snow, and then they were out of sight. The sound of them moving in the snow came back to me, and then there was silence. Cold and still...winter's darkness is deep.