On Gods & Monsters

mother // under the beaver moon

Mother

Mother

Where are You?

It is Cold

They Howl

I can see Their Yellow Eyes from the Tree Line

Mother

I can see the Brightness

Of my Fresh Blood

On the Sharp Snow

Mother

Should we Celebrate?

Or Mourn?

Mother

Will I be

A Mother, too?

Or does it End here?

Mother

They’re

Ever closer

Where are you?

Where are you?

It has been so Long,

I forget the Gentle Contours

Of your Face

I simply Remember

I look like my Father

Not You

Mother

How Loud must I be

So that you will Hear me?

How Long must this go on?

My throat is Raw

From Calling Out

Across the Frozen Plains

The Whiteness

Witness of

Everything

She Envelops Me

The Wolves

They are Hungry

As I am Hungry

But not

For the Same Thing

Oh, how I wish You were Here

How my Face is stained with Tears

Tinged Red, like all the Waters of Me

From your Long Absence

In the Silence

The space between

Their Cries

I Remember

Seeing You

As You named Me

As you spread the Blood from your Forefinger to my Forehead

Spirit Bond made real

“Unega Wa-Ya”

You named me

“The Last One”

“The One Who Sees”

As a child,

You thought that Name

Would carry me

To greatness

For our People

For our Tribe

The ramshackle remnants of Us

But

Oh, Mother

It was not a Wind

Beneath me

But a Weight

You,

Hateful, (Loving)

Loving, (Hateful)

(Heart) Broken

Do You know what it is to Carry such a Name?

Not have it

Carry you?

To wear it daily

Conflagration and Prostration?

Before the Greater Gods?

Do you know what it is to See

Where no one else Sees?

That Madness?

That Grief?

That Divinity?

I Know there have been Others like Me

Across Time

But I have yet

To meet Them

I Pray for Them

As I hope

They Pray for Me

In your absence

I have become Strong

Through my Softness

Born under the Beaver Moon

You know

I am made of Water

And Water,

Given Time,

Makes its way through

Everything

Even Pain

Even Stone

Not by force,

But by Knowing

By the Loving persistence

Of our Hard-Nosed, Flat-Boned people

I gaze up

At Sister Moon

In her fullness

Pregnant with possibility

Skin, the same color as Mine

And remember

Where to find you

Full-bellied, I crawl

To the moving blackness

That is the Winter stream

It takes me many hours

But I do not stop

There, finally

I sit

I gaze

Across, and down

And see You

Finally

A cry!

Tears of Joy

There you are!

Where, once

I saw only my Father

I remember You

That Nose we share, soft and small

That Smile, luminescent

Too Big for our Face

Thick lashes, gifted from our cousin, Crow

The way We Do Not Die

Even When We Die

My Heart, it fills

And spills out of my Eyes

You have been Gone

Such a Long time

So many Seasons

Of the Elk

So many Births

And Deaths

Each Day

Each Time

I look over my Shoulder

And there is only Space

But then I Remember this Name,

You gave me

And these two Lives, I Carry

Spirit, and Here

You, and I

I, and the Daughter in my belly

And

Pulling my eyes away

From the bliss of the water world

Hearing the Wolves, again

I look towards the River, and see

The glint of a long-forgotten bone

Peeking out from under the stinging snow

With my tiny hands, I grasp for it

Greeted by its smoothness

I take the Arrowhead from my pocket

The one You gave Me

And begin to shave

The whites of my teeth Shining, Smiling

And Wait for the Wolves to arrive

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*Written work by Christina Mokwa – © Christina Mokwa/Mokwa LLC/Mokwa Creative Company