March 2, 2021

Leaving Waniyetu

Lois Red Elk offers a pair of poems about the promise and struggle end of winter brings

by Lois Red Elk-Reed

A Yellowstone bison hunkers down in a snowstorm. Even with the green abundance coming, striving to reach the end of winter can push wildlife to its limits. Photo by Jacob W. Frank/NPS

EDITOR'S NOTE: From the Rockies to the high plains, these last weeks of winter can be a time of brutal endurance. Warm, thawing days can quickly be erased by late season blizzards, pushing wildlife survivors to the very brink of exhausting their energy stores. The past year has also been a challenging one for elders vulnerable and alone in Indian Country. As she also does with remarkable grace, poet Lois Red Elk invokes metaphors to describe how, with spring fecundity nearly in sight, these weeks of March are ones of remembrance and perseverance. The first poem Leaving Waniyetu is brand new and will be featured in a forthcoming volume of new poems while Silent Life Letting Go appears in Dragonfly Weather, Lost Horse Press, 2013. When covid times end, we hope to host a reading of Red Elk's new volume in Bozeman. We look forward to it with pleasure. —Mountain Journal

by Lois Red Elk

Leaving Waniyetu

Here now, a presence walking away from

winter, absorbed low sun learning, carried

over for later listening, celebrating, musing.

My deer fetus bag is near empty, stained with

dainty dried berries. These old bones worked

hard for that cold day pudding. I arrive with

storm clouds, must protect aged winter skin

from biting wind moon, thirsty for angle of

shaded sun, lower shadows declined. I ready

self for a deep dream, reliving tales of star

stepping adventures, the last of this season, a

grateful soul journey. The changing moon is

altering senses, sharpening hearing for sounds

of thawing river, earth releasing buds, clearing

winter eyes of glaring sun off melting snow.

Spent tongues from storytelling remind me to

reach for sacred dialect, thanking earth spirit,

prayers for growing energy. The birds that

stayed and the home bound crickets sang old

songs of childhood, healing time of circling

the sun. Now feel the children getting restless,

leaving toys, for open doors, sliding away

from elders, reaching for a new sun, pushing

time while earth too hurries to leave Waniyetu.

A grizzly searching for sustenance near Canyon in Yellowstone. Photo courtesy Neal Herbert/NPS

Silent Life Letting Go

Frozen creek beds shift,

fall apart

little by little

ice and snow

exchanging

lives to become

trickling water

for the beginning

reach of hair like wood

living deep

under the trunk

of glowing tree buds.

Clouds off the river,

a steam, like breath

extending

for sun releasing

mud into frogs.

Earth stretching

after winter sleep

for grizzlies

exhaling old breath..

of hibernation.

Sun warming air

for geese reaching

for flight and

wings leaving

equator.

Silent life letting go,

for the arc

of a new sun.

About Lois Red Elk-Reed

Lois Red Elk-Reed is a poet who calls the high plains home. She is Mountain Journal's poet in residence.

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March 2, 2021

Leaving Waniyetu

Lois Red Elk offers a pair of poems about the promise and struggle end of winter brings

Defend Truth &Wild Places

Defend Truth &
Wild Places