Long Hiawatha Poems
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Legend or prophecy, one cannot understand
Beautiful woman, a warrior pure of heart
A message to all who seek peace, love and harmony
Seven sacred ceremonies
Sweat Lodge, naming, healing, adoption, marriage
Vision Quest for communicating with Him
Sundance for the well being of people of all nations
Harmony and Spirituality restored in the fourth age
White, Yellow, Red and Black, mankind
North, South, East and West, nature
The re establishment of respect and honor
Miracle Moon, a gift from the Great Spirit
Her seventh blessing to all nations, Chief Hiawatha
The time has come for all nations
A connection to the Great Spirit
Peace, love and harmony
If only we believe.
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole
universe dwells. For when you are at the center within you
and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.”
---Chief Crazy Horse, Oglala Sioux
Today we traveled from Bayfield, Wisconsin to Bark River, Michigan
We are staying at a beautiful cabin by the lake….
The 200 mile drive went smoothly…except for one slight navigational mistake.
We planned to stop at this 52 foot. statue of Hiawatha
In Iron River…where…since 1964 he has stood.
In my defense…not knowing Michigan
it’s easy to mix up Iron River…with the similar sounding Ironwood.
So…when we reached Iron River and Deborah read about the statue
I was half right …Hiawatha is his name
but he stands in the town of Ironwood…100 miles back the way we came.
So much for Hiawatha…and my map reading expertise…
but we forgot all about him when we reached our cabin…
nestled among white cedar trees.
We learned from Walt, the owner of our cabin,
as we felt a cool Lake Michigan breeze…
how, to the Native Americans, white cedars are considered sacred trees.
In his front yard we listened…surrounded by a wide array of flowers
while Walt told us how they believe the white cedars are imbued with healing powers.
How passed down from their ancestors…were legends such as these…
that there are protective spirits hidden in these trees.
He encouraged us to hug these trees… so we could feel their power too
which of course the two of us were more than willing and happy to do.
The white cedars are also called the tree of life…
because…lasting through the summer heat and the winter cold….
some white cedars standing today…are well over 1000 years old.
If we had to miss a 52 foot Hiawatha…by taking the wrong route
landing in thicket of 50 foot tall white cedar was a wonderful substitute
Stories such as these…like the one you have just heard…
prove once again how life is…and always will be…such a beautiful word.
When I was very young
All I really wanted
To be was an Indian.
My mother always read to me -
Stories of fairies and elves,
Of princesses and ogres, witches,
And brownies who did good deeds.
Poems, “Wynken, Blynken and Nod”,
“The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat”,
And “The Sugar Plum Tree”.
Books, Alice in Wonderland,
The Little Colonel stories, and
The Five Little Peppers.
(I wonder if my grandchildren
Have ever heard of any of the
Old-fashioned stories and poems
Which were all magic to me.)
But, most of all, I loved
Longfellow’s poem Hiawatha.
“By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining deep sea water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis…”
I hear my mother almost singing
Those magical words from
“The Childhood of Hiawatha”.
I could see Hiawatha growing up
And learning Indian ways in
The woodlands of his youth.
I wanted to live in the woods,
To learn to talk with animals
And know their secrets.
I wanted to wear moccasins
And build a birch bark canoe!
One Christmas my brother got
A cowboy suit and hat and holsters,
But I, wonder of wonders,
Got a “real” Indian dress
With designs of tiny beads,
A fringe on the skirt,
And a headband with feathers!
I told my friends I was part Indian,
That my great grandmother
Was a real live Indian!
When it got back to my mother
She just said, “What stories you tell!”
Although I outgrew the dress,
The dream stayed with me
Throughout my childhood -
Sort of wishful thinking.
I always wanted to
Be close to nature.
Much of my childhood
I spent by myself, somewhat
Of a loner, climbing trees,
Making hideouts in the woods,
Walking in streams
To “cover my tracks”.
That “Indian child” I was
Still lives on in the
Recesses of my memory.
Maybe that’s why now, “grown up”,
I love walking in the woods
Or foraging by the ocean,
Why Stalking the Wild Asparagus
Is one of my favorite books,
Why I love picking wild blueberries
And grapes and making jam, or
Digging for clams and mussels.
Why I HAD to experiment with cooking
Slipper shells and making
Seaweed pudding and “Sumac-ade”.
Of course, I realize,
As well as anyone, that
The life of an Indian was not
As idyllic as I had once believed,
But, even now, after
All these years have passed,
It appears that
My “inner Indian”
Is alive and well and
Living on Martha’s Vineyard!
The 90 year old
Could no longer bend or even lean
Over
His brother’s grave
Stands in the sun with his planted cane
At his elbow
Tells me
He hears his brother speak from the grass
“Bobby, where have you been all these years?”
Dad turns to me
Says when he was 13
And the Army telegram arrived at the house
And his mother and father tore it open
On the Roosevelt porch
He ran down Sutherland Street to downtown Ironwood
With shock if not even a grin
Wired across his face
Shouting from the Walnut-split sidewalks
“My brother’s been killed! My brother’s been killed!”
Haunted
By his youthful exuberance
For all his old days thereafter
Thought he was responsible
For his mother losing her hair
Nest unraveled by a storm
For his father
Never using a razor again
Instead, each morning
Rubbing expressions clean in the sink
With his palms
For the only thing
Left standing
In this near-abandoned mining town
A fifty foot fiberglass statute
Of Chief Hiawatha
Gazing over the passage of centuries
Never lets go of any soul
No matter the crimes against humanity.
Today as we traveled from Michigan into Canada
across the twin cities of Salt Ste. Marie….
on the 300 miles of this journey…we learned a little more history….
The name Canada most likely came from the Huron-Iroquois word Kanata
meaning village or settlement…
A frenchmen used it to name the entire country
before the Hurons could tell him exactly what it meant.
We are currently near Lake Ontario which also got it’s name from the Iroquois.
The legend says from an Iroquois chief’s daughter
who when she saw the lake said kandario…which means sparkling water.
We have been on Lake Superior…named Gitchi-Gami by the Ojibwe
this means Big Sea Water…and she is a beautiful lake
In Longfellow’s poem Hiawatha…he called it Gitchi-Gumi by mistake.
We have felt the waters of Lake Michigan…a little boat trip we did take….
the Anishinabe called it mishigami …which simply means…big lake
We have driven my Lake Huron another beautiful place to be.
The Wyandot called it karegnondi which roughly translated means
freshwater sea
.
And we spend the next 2 days on Nipissing Lake…meaning little water
A name the Ojibwe chose to keep
because the crystal clear waters of this lake are not so very deep
It seems all around us on this trip…we’ve seen and tried to understand
how we travel over the footprints or on the shoulders
of those who first walked this land.
We have gained a new appreciation…of all they saw
the mountains, the rivers, the lakes…the plains and the buffalo too
of how they lived…of their philosophy…and of all they have gone through,
We offer them our thanks
we only wish we could go back in time…and change our history….
and we wonder if things had played out differently….
what kind of beauty in our world the would see.
Just 'fore words formed inside my head
as my mother put me to bed
her sweet voice would rhyme to lull me
tales of children wild and misled.
Who ran and played and sang and danced
deep in teepees as in a trance.
Or climbing atop the walls of castles
dueled with broom stick used as lance.
The children’s hour was our time
to kiss and snuggle laugh and sigh.
And she taught me of Paul Revere
of his rushed ride with red coats nigh.
So many Longfellow tales told
of bold, real or imagined feats
that never did I want her voice
to stop or pause or to repeat.
Tennyson could tell a tale of
charging brigands in full retreat.
But, none could met the glory of
Longfellow’s stories so replete!
*Longfellow wrote Hiawatha, The Chidren's Hour, and Paul Revere's Ride
among dozens of other poem stories. In the 1920's children were taught
history through the use of poetry.
©2010 (Jim Sularz)
Was it by chance or pure circumstance,
that the path I took, led me far out West?
An island hop, a drifting castaway,
with treasured moments, of bygone yesterdays.
Where family, friends, who all grew old,
there, one by one died, as I was told.
Faint northern lights, where Paul Bunyan swings,
I’ll take back from time, my boyhood dreams.
I’ll renew the love, my heart holds high,
and celebrate in life, what remains of time.
I’ll turn back this vessel, that’s been adrift,
to a warm embrace, a last-forgotten kiss.
And when this journey draws near complete,
I’ll feel the soft Earth, cool, beneath my feet.
On that final hour, deep within my soul,
will live a place I once left, I’ll still call – home.
So, bury me high within the hills,
with the purple lilacs and the daffodils.
Where loons wail, and sighing willows weep,
where Hiawatha, rocks us fast asleep.
We are inviting you to join our club of sixty- two.
I was surprised, excited, and honored, by Miss Lou.
You are our type, she assured me. We all want you.
I believed her for sure; it gave me a big head too.
You even look like the founders, the Ticket master said.
I did not catch her name, something like Rover Fido Red.
And will they be there? I asked, curious. I thought they were dead.
They might be, he agreed, if they wake up and get out of bed.
The door open wide and the dogs came running in.
One gave me a swift sloppy lick on my chin.
Another one sniffed me all over, until Rover made him stop.
“Now let’s introduce you to the founders, the top.”
The founders were gray hounds, Miss. Hiawatha and Miss Dirk.
They were old maid sisters, who never had to work.
Their father gave them money, so they could play all day.
I looked like these dog? No bow! No wow! No way!
In the gray dawn, ghostlike,
A mist rises over the lake
Like a floating whisper.
My shorts and tee shirt
Are damp and clammy
From hanging on the bedpost
Near the open window.
The dock is slippery, and
The yellow kayak slips
Soundlessly into the water.
The paddle barely ripples
The breathless surface.
I am adrift in my imagination.
I am a loon, skimming
The water with its haunting cry.
I am the Indian Hiawatha
In his birchbark canoe.
I am Jacques Marquette,
Exploring the Mississippi River,
Watching for Indians.
I am a lone leaf, drifting.
I am the wind and the air
And the thick gray fog.
I am the water itself,
Calm on the surface but
Teeming with life, as it
Wends its way to the sea.
I am the wind and the rain,
The sun and the clouds.
I am all things in this
Haunting, misty world.
As the fog slowly lifts,
Lightens, and turns golden,
I slip back into myself and
Paddle toward the shore.
~The Dream~
( Triolet )
-A tribute to "The Slave’s Dream" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow-
One night the slave had a nice dream
And in the dream he was just free
He heard sounds of freedom’s bold scream
One night the slave had a nice dream
And saw light of liberty’s gleam
No more felt flesh by whips just bleed
One night the slave had a nice dream
And in the dream he was just free.
Dorian Petersen Potter
aka ladydp2000
copyright@2008
July.01.2016
~Author's Notes:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator, whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets.