Joseph Harrington
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Writing Out of Time
creative writing & climate chaos


Two Poems by Denise Low

12/16/2019

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Editor’s note. According to philosopher Enrique Dussel, it wasn’t until Europeans colonized the Americas, subjected and slaughtered its people, and plundered its wealth that they went from being inhabitants of a backwater of the world to thinking they were inherently better than everyone else. True, the notion of Indigenous people as natural-born “stewards of the land” is a  stereotype. But then again, they didn’t invent the steam engine.
     And here we are, in a climate emergency.
     Today’s guest post of two poems by Denise Low shows you how it all began.

Picture
Picture
Picture

First Contact: Interglacial Sagas
 
Anno Domin / i     Domin / ion     Domin / ate
                                               
half the     known     edge
world’s end                               waves Mer-men     
 
     start with
                                first blow         first
                                                                  bellow
breath of sea monsters
                   [I find a map illustrated with sea pigs]

two worlds [and oceans between]
           
1. white-skinned people
2. brown skinned with            ochre paint
           
                   maybe where
 
                   [in another map’s ocean swims a fish-centaur man]
 
Saint Brendan in annals
The voyage is dated to AD 512–530
                            (Betha Brenainn / Vita Brendan)
 
                                                   “vines suitable for wine”
When they light a fire, the island sinks; they realize that it is actually a whale.
 
Skraelings, those who wear skins
                 [of beasts]
 
                 [Later my black straight hair
                  at birth turns Norse blonde
                  under cloth my Mongolian spots]
 
Furs valued and traded
 
A market was formed between them; and this people in their purchases preferred red cloth; in exchange they had furs to give, and skins quite grey. They wished also to buy swords and lances, but Karlsefni and Snorri forbad it.
 
            milch /milk given for furs before they would leave without bloodshed
 
            [trade these years of warm seas
            before another age of cold returned]
 
A great crowd of Skrælingar boats, coming down upon them like a stream, the staves this time being all brandished in the direction opposite to the sun’s motion [backlit]
 
in Markland / in Forestland
[named on parchment]
 
Then took they and bare red shields to meet them. They encountered one another and fought, and there was a great shower of missiles.
 
                            voiceless Indigenous unvoiced amidst          
                            waters between Iceland and Newfoundland
                            roll of unceasing waters

            where     
                             a birch bark cartograph
                            [thin as parchment]
                            of clans
                            glyphs of epic stories: Listen
 
Greenlandic Inuit Newfoundland Inuit
also
Innu Mi'kmaq Southern Inuit of NunatuKavut
[Munsee Unami Lenape to their south
and my grandfather’s people]
 
[Irish Scots English to their east
and my other grandfather’s people]
 
 
[1400s MS illustration of St. Brendan, Wikipedia
The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880 translation into English by J. Sephton from the original Icelandic ’Eiríks saga rauða’.https://sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en ]


Picture

My ([Broken] [Forbidden] Indigenous) Identity
 
                Pale mountain lions     a female and mate
                low-slung bodies     whip tails
                Our neighborhood laps     their territory
 
The cats walk     night edges 
shapeshifters     turning into lynxes
 
                  enormous tabby cats     with whiskers
                  ear tufts     almond-shaped green eyes 
                  The first I dream of cats     that day
 
I find Julie Buffalo Head’s     painting
Blood and a Single Tree    dripping vermillion    
 
                  A crow looks outdoors     from a windowsill    
                  Another crow holds chalk     draws a spiral
                  a portal where words     rise like smoke
 
A raccoon     against a wall of red stains    
bleeds from fatal wounds     reaches for blue
 
                 A deer lies on the floor     tongue lolling
                 side covered in Ponca      floral designs
                 A suited man’s figure wears      a cat’s face
 
Na shëwanàkw            White Man
What have you / I       done to us?

_____________________________________________________________

Denise Low is the author, most recently, of The Turtle's Beating Heart: One Family's Story of Lenape Survival (U of Nebraska Press, 2017); Mélange Block (Red Mountain Press, 2014); Natural Theologies: Essays about Literature of the New Middle West (The Backwaters Press, 2011); New and Selected Poems (Penthe, 2007); and the forthcoming Northern Cheyenne Ledger Art by Fort Robinson Breakout Survivors (with Ramon Powers, U. of Nebraska Press, 2020). She lives (and dodges wildfires) in Northern California.

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    I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this.

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