Karma

Hush thee and sleep, little one, 
     The feathers on thy board sway to and fro; 
The shadows reach far downward in the water 
     The great old owl is waking, day will go. 

Rest thee and fear not, little one, 
     Flitting fireflies come to light you on your way 
To the fair land of dreams, while in the grasses 
     The happy cricket chirps his merry lay. 

Tsa-du-meh watches always o’er her little one, 
     The great owl cannot harm you, slumber on 
’Till the pale light comes shooting from the eastward, 
     And the twitter of the birds says night has gone.

I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
He worked in the woods and filled his pockets
with golden chunks of pitch.
For his children
he provided this special sacrament
and we’d gather at this feet, around his legs,
bumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
Our skin would stick to Daddy's gluey clothing
and we’d smell like Mumma's Pine Sol.
We had no money for store bought gum
but that’s all right.
The spruce gum
was so close to chewing amber
as though in our mouths we held the eyes of Coyote
and how many other children had fathers
that placed on their innocent, anxious tongue
the blood of tree?

All things begin from the spindle,
we say—life spun from graces.
I grew like rain from rumbles of my parents’
cloud, a dark dawn, admitting growth.
In the beginning, I squeeze into existence with a head,
white, silhouette-like—formed from
the stomach of the hard earth on...

It is winter in Anchorage, and I am only as tall as the shoveled snowbanks in the parking lot of the pink apartments. I am old enough to have chores but young enough not to fully understand frostbite. It is...