Divining Manëtuwàk at the Banks of the Wabash by D. A. Lockhart

DIVINING MANËTUWÀK AT THE BANKS OF THE WABASH

by D.A. Lockhart

Pick the dirt-mounded field
or fallow one of half-mowed
lawn and scraggly huckleberry
trees. Alongside old 67, let rest
the car upon the lip of grass,
loose gravel lining the path north.

Hold tight to this Y of a xaxakw
branch, walk a straight line
from the car, slow, atop rain
hungry earth, hopeful in footfall,
move steading as nehëniltipasèt
searching creation atop thermals.

Somewhere mid-stride, perhaps
at the windbreak ash bank
at field’s edge, feel the manëtu
heavy in water churn, topple
downward the branch, feel its
demand to touch darkness below.

Drop to your knees, and dig,
fingers, nails through shallow
roots of imported grasses, peel
back the earth, till you breach
the outer walls of Cahokia, lower
still until earth itself is water.

In cold water, electric fingertips
feel manëtu flow through your
down-turned arms between earth
and the warmth of you against
a still climbing sun. Rest. Breathe
deeply of ancestors. Speak of returns.

D.A. LOCKHART is the author of Devil in the Woods (Brick Books, 2019) and Wenchikàneit Visions (Black Moss, 2019). His work has appeared widely throughout Turtle Island including the Malahat Review, Grain, CV2, TriQuarterly, The Fiddlehead, and Belt. He is pùkuwànkoamimëns of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation. Lockhart currently resides at Waawiiyaatanong where he is the publisher at Urban Farmhouse Press.

Divining Manëtuwàk at the Banks of the Wabash can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 3.1.