Across mountains and plains,
buffalo, prairie dog, snake,
I must search for keepers of medicine,
ask to use what they unearthed from blessed soil.
Their labor, with mud crusted hands, cannot be measured.
We have reaped the value of what they revealed,
in yellow dock, dandelion and yarrow:
the great medicines that heal.
Risking death, as they spoke to rain and thunder,
sang praises to sun, flared in rash, burned
and coughed up blood, in order to understand.
They gathered knowledge from each landscape and leaf,
knowing when to use a flower, when to use a root,
which ones were asking to be chosen,
chopped, boiled, swallowed in a brew.
Years of trials, the great task of listening,
through hunger, drought and birthing children,
they grew trust in the roots of autumn,
spring blossoms, birds that move seeds through the air.
—
Jesse LoVasco (she/her) is a poet, visual artist and herbalist residing in unceded land of both Anishnabe in Michigan and Abenaki in Vermont. She studied poetry at Vermont College. Her book Native was published in 2020. She was a participating fellow of Nature Culture’s Writing the Land Project, with poems in the anthologies Windblown l and Migration and Home, as well as a yearly contributor and facilitator for PoemCity in Montpelier, VT.
