Too often, these days,
I cannot make the sweetgrass meet the flame.
The fragrance is a borrowed prayer, anyway.
My ancestors fallen,
over a continent and an ocean away,
forgot how. Or, maybe
never knowing my great grandmothers,
I lost them, too.
And, neither Bridget, Christ, the Creator,
or even a common ghost ever answers.
Oh, yes, I constantly look to the heavens.
But, the moon is too far to hear.
The stars too beautiful to care.
And, the sun? Well, he’s too busy
keeping everyone alive.
It’s better to look to your friends.
So, I do and, on the other side of the glass,
a mother bear ignores the thorns
and shakes blackberries out for her cubs.
Her prayers are evident in the blackish blue stains
on her cubs’ happy faces.
I didn’t hear her say anything.
Just some blood in the fallen leaves
where the stickers got into her paws.
She looked at me for a moment
and nodded to a clearing in the bushes
where my granddaughter played with her cubs.
With no children, nor gods or goddesses of my own,
that little girl’s hope haunted me.
I set the sweetgrass down
and turned back to my work.
Working, wading through my own thorns,
my sweat waters plants,
my blood feeds the soil,
the bile boiling in my stomach
is a language the land understands.
So, let my labor be my prayer
let my granddaughter see the scars
blackberry bushes ripped into my skin.
Let her taste those berries
and paint her skin blue with juice
instead of grief.
That’s how the bears pray, anyway.
