As morning fog lifts & lake glitter stuns—
again I will vanish, return sweetened.
Jiimaan sways, bobs on an infinity
we call nibi. All day my paddle hungers.
Three river otters swim—liquid and swift
while I dip and stroke dip and stroke,
search the Kawishiwi for motion or sign.
Otter chirp echoes over water—song of nigig.
Magnetted, I follow the play of marsh dwellers.
Fairy territory of reindeer moss and moccasin flowers,
where black bodies sleek the edges of the channel,
whiskered faces pop up—there! no there!
Yes, we live between blue sky and purpling water;
between wait and sudden—a tiny trance. A joy.
—
Kimberly Blaeser, past Wisconsin Poet Laureate and founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets, is the author of six poetry collections including Ancient Light. An enrolled member of White Earth Nation, Blaeser is an Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, MFA faculty member at Institute of American Indian Arts, and Professor Emerita at UW-Milwaukee. She lives part of each year in a cabin near the BWCA wilderness following poems, photos, and river otters—sometimes all at once.
