Ways to honor #IndigenousPeoplesDay 2019

Let me begin by thanking Orion magazine for the inspiration on how I might honor this day. On this day their web site features only stories that celebrate indigenous artists and writers. We did something similar celebrating Native American and indigenous resources we're familiar with. To begin, if you're in or near The Cities, check out

• The American Indian Cultural Corridor along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis





American Indian Cultural Corridor banners


Photo by J. Harrington




• Visit Birchbark Books


• Plan a visit to the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post


• Spend some time at the web sites of The Healing Place Collaborative and the


• bdote memory map


• Check the List of place names of Native American origin in the United States


• Search the interactive, online map of native territories, languages and treaties


• Get ready for Native American Heritage Month in November, and


• Acknowledge indigenous territory

a gallery of American Indian art

Photo by J. Harrington

Apprenticed to Justice

Kimberly Blaeser

The weight of ashes
from burned-out camps.
Lodges smoulder in fire,
animal hides wither
their mythic images shrinking
pulling in on themselves,
all incinerated
fragments
of breath bone and basket
rest heavy
sink deep
like wintering frogs.
And no dustbowl wind
can lift
this history
of loss.

Now fertilized by generations—
ashes upon ashes,
this old earth erupts.
Medicine voices rise like mists
white buffalo memories
teeth marks on birch bark
forgotten forms
tremble into wholeness.

And the grey weathered stumps,
trees and treaties
cut down
trampled for wealth.
Flat Potlatch plateaus
of ghost forests
raked by bears
soften rot inward
until tiny arrows of green
sprout
rise erect
rootfed
from each crumbling center.

Some will never laugh
as easily.
Will hide knives
silver as fish in their boots,
hoard names
as if they could be stolen
as easily as land,
will paper their walls
with maps and broken promises,
scar their flesh
with this badge
heavy as ashes.

And this is a poem
for those
apprenticed
from birth.
In the womb
of your mother nation
heartbeats
sound like drums
drums like thunder
thunder like twelve thousand
walking
then ten thousand
then eight
walking away
from stolen homes
from burned out camps
from relatives fallen
as they walked
then crawled
then fell.

This is the woodpecker sound
of an old retreat.
It becomes an echo.
an accounting
to be reconciled.
This is the sound
of trees falling in the woods
when they are heard,
of red nations falling
when they are remembered.
This is the sound
we hear
when fist meets flesh
when bullets pop against chests
when memories rattle hollow in stomachs.

And we turn this sound
over and over again
until it becomes
fertile ground
from which we will build
new nations
upon the ashes of our ancestors.
Until it becomes
the rattle of a new revolution
these fingers
drumming on keys.

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