Mother // Under the Beaver Moon
Zoltan Bekefy, Moon (2016)
On Gods & Monsters
mother // under the beaver moon
Mother
Mother
Where are You?
It is Cold
They Howl
I can see Their Yellow Eyes from the Tree Line
Mother
I can see the Brightness
Of my Fresh Blood
On the Sharp Snow
Mother
Should we Celebrate?
Or Mourn?
Mother
Will I be
A Mother, too?
Or does it End here?
Mother
They’re
Ever closer
Where are you?
Where are you?
It has been so Long,
I forget the Gentle Contours
Of your Face
I simply Remember
I look like my Father
Not You
Mother
How Loud must I be
So that you will Hear me?
How Long must this go on?
My throat is Raw
From Calling Out
Across the Frozen Plains
The Whiteness
Witness of
Everything
She Envelops Me
The Wolves
They are Hungry
As I am Hungry
But not
For the Same Thing
Oh, how I wish You were Here
How my Face is stained with Tears
Tinged Red, like all the Waters of Me
From your Long Absence
In the Silence
The space between
Their Cries
I Remember
Seeing You
As You named Me
As you spread the Blood from your Forefinger to my Forehead
Spirit Bond made real
“Unega Wa-Ya”
You named me
“The Last One”
“The One Who Sees”
As a child,
You thought that Name
Would carry me
To greatness
For our People
For our Tribe
The ramshackle remnants of Us
But
Oh, Mother
It was not a Wind
Beneath me
But a Weight
You,
Hateful, (Loving)
Loving, (Hateful)
(Heart) Broken
Do You know what it is to Carry such a Name?
Not have it
Carry you?
To wear it daily
Conflagration and Prostration?
Before the Greater Gods?
Do you know what it is to See
Where no one else Sees?
That Madness?
That Grief?
That Divinity?
I Know there have been Others like Me
Across Time
But I have yet
To meet Them
I Pray for Them
As I hope
They Pray for Me
In your absence
I have become Strong
Through my Softness
Born under the Beaver Moon
You know
I am made of Water
And Water,
Given Time,
Makes its way through
Everything
Even Pain
Even Stone
Not by force,
But by Knowing
By the Loving persistence
Of our Hard-Nosed, Flat-Boned people
I gaze up
At Sister Moon
In her fullness
Pregnant with possibility
Skin, the same color as Mine
And remember
Where to find you
Full-bellied, I crawl
To the moving blackness
That is the Winter stream
It takes me many hours
But I do not stop
There, finally
I sit
I gaze
Across, and down
And see You
Finally
A cry!
Tears of Joy
There you are!
Where, once
I saw only my Father
I remember You
That Nose we share, soft and small
That Smile, luminescent
Too Big for our Face
Thick lashes, gifted from our cousin, Crow
The way We Do Not Die
Even When We Die
My Heart, it fills
And spills out of my Eyes
You have been Gone
Such a Long time
So many Seasons
Of the Elk
So many Births
And Deaths
Each Day
Each Time
I look over my Shoulder
And there is only Space
But then I Remember this Name,
You gave me
And these two Lives, I Carry
Spirit, and Here
You, and I
I, and the Daughter in my belly
And
Pulling my eyes away
From the bliss of the water world
Hearing the Wolves, again
I look towards the River, and see
The glint of a long-forgotten bone
Peeking out from under the stinging snow
With my tiny hands, I grasp for it
Greeted by its smoothness
I take the Arrowhead from my pocket
The one You gave Me
And begin to shave
The whites of my teeth Shining, Smiling
And Wait for the Wolves to arrive
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*Written work by Christina Mokwa – © Christina Mokwa/Mokwa LLC/Mokwa Creative Company
