Song of Our Saints in the Sears Parking Lot
The reservation dogs are barking on their leashes again
and it is Tuesday, a perpetual Tuesday of the mind
as I am imagining every wave that crashes against the
shore, every crab that scuttles sideways under this rock or that,
any rock will do. The oysters are burrowing into the ground,
defying whatever shovel that comes hunting, whatever child,
skirts hitched around her knees, that digs into the yielding dirt
to fill her bucket on these beaches that wash away
with each passing year, near the houses that sink into the cool
wet sand, and forget the memories of lovers laughing through the halls.
Isn’t the body another kind of earth? Isn’t the earth
another kind of body? Seed the wound. Confetti the party.
Blue smoke, or pink? Wake up.
They say a face is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin
like that’s some kind of proof. Like the body is still entombed,
but you can’t make me believe in nothing. I know a risen Lord
when I see one, and anyway, Jesus appeared to my aunt in her single-wide,
at the foot of her twin bed, brown-paneled walls and shag carpet
and the glow of that same blue moon at the window.
He said, “Don’t be afraid,” and I’m not.
Meanwhile the dogs are gnawing at the bones.
My stomach hurts again but that won’t stop me.
I’ve known love as deep and wide as the Pacific Ocean.
I’ve seen the sky that goes on and on, past the horizon line
where colors melt into the sea. It’s purple, and blue,
and red, and pink.
Nothing ever dies for real.
This excerpt was originally published in On Resilience: Stories of Climate Adaptation Across Washington’s Landscapes, by Harriet Morgan and Lindsay Senechal, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and Writing the Land® poets. It is reprinted with permission of WDFW, Writing the Land, and the authors.
It is the first of four excerpts from the anthology.
On Resilience is a poetry anthology created in partnership with NatureCulture®’s Writing the Land program. The collection highlights how WDFW manages more than 1 million acres of land across Washington and documents the ways climate change is affecting ecosystems, including warming stream temperatures, shifting snowpack, increased wildfire risk, and changes in species’ seasonal patterns. Each section pairs place-based management summaries with poems inspired by specific wildlife areas, offering readers both a science-based understanding of how WDFW is adapting natural resource practices and a creative reflection on the connections between people, land, and climate.
Misty Shipman is an enrolled member of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe of Indians and a descendant of the Chinook Indian Tribe. She is a prolific Pacific Northwestern filmmaker intent on sharing a femme, American Indian gaze that shifts the lens of power and frees the viewer from the reservation of the mind. Through visual sovereignty, she strives to create a space for authentic representation. Misty holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Idaho and a Ph.D. in Native American Literature with a concentration in Film Studies from Washington State University.
Header photo by Danita Delimont, courtesy Shutterstock.
