sgúusiid

A poem about remembering, rooting, and awakening into bloom.

Daajing Giids, Haida Gwaii

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This week’s poetry feature is written by Nebula as part of our Witnessing the World Come Alive poetry submission series. Follow Nebula’s adventures and creative pursuits on Instagram here.

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sgúusiid

These past few years have been small and slow,
and every winter, I visited a dear friend, his cat, and
his wood stove in a little town by a rushing river. 

But the ocean calls me — her green stink and her salty
depths. I could not stay small and still. When the river’s
edges began to melt, and some monochrome birds 
zipped past me on the current, I knew it was time to fly.

I traveled along five rivers to see her again, got seasick 
from the storms on the Hecate, and came home to a
beach thick with butter clams and a new friend gifting us
a box of potatoes.

This place is remembering. The stories have been hidden
in walls, underground, and passed from pocket to pocket,
aunty to mother to child. 

The language is like sgúusiid, Haida potatoes, sleeping in
the ground and still growing in the forests, nutty and sweet.
It’s sprouting now, as the alders grow fat with catkins and
the salmonberry bushes blush at the Swainson’s thrush.

I am remembering, too. Things that I thought were dead
were only frozen, and there is a beating heart within, a
seed that is ready to take root.

The dáal (rain) and juuyée (sun) are plentiful, and the 
warm earth is ready. What did we store all this starch for, 
if not to wake up, and bloom?