Poem of the Week: Lois Beardslee

Manitogiizans/December

When I asked my mother

If she could remember

What her mother's mother called December

Before the Black-Robed religious reformers

Named it LittleSpritMoon

After their BabyJesus

She put her open hand

To her own lips

Shook her head

Looked away

Said we are better off

If we do not remember those things.

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From Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas (University of Arizona Press, 2011).

Used with permission.

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Lois Beardslee, of the Ojibwe and Lacandon peoples, is the author of Lies to Live By, Rachel's Children, Not Far Away, and The Women's Warrior Society. Beardslee also preserves traditional Ojibwe art forms, including porcupine quillwork, sweetgrass basketry, and birch bark biting. She is an instructor in communications at Northwestern Michigan College.

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