Something I’m loving about this project is getting to discover artists like Alaska Native poet Abigail Chabitnoy. This is from Poetry Northwest – Three Poems by Abigail Chabitnoy.

See the full 30 Indigenous Poems Compilation here.

We Became Pieces so the Whole Would Survive

By Abigail Chabitnoy

I have so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin / and / I am afraid / … / I will not know where to end.

We took the long way to Kennecott to pick raspberries and find
the old graveyard

weathered crosses and young men
from the mining years

before the ground was thawed.

*

Glaciers have their own warning signs. Ice forms
                                       on the margins
cracks under our weight.

*

The more distance we put between us the taller
the mountains grew. It used to be the river

channeled the other side but lately
the banks are breaking.

The high ground isn’t.

Many areas have seen disappearances
glaciers and ice sheets and rivers
short of the sea—

the face never the same.

*

I suppose somebody would have made the spotted feather into bedding
and isn’t most of our armor against cold these days?

I was thinking of a hat in need of a feather or two
face like, or

a sharper mask to wear when the men broke through
the trees
trying to be small.

Am I predator or prey
they didn’t see me? And they?

That they are not spirits is certain. That my coat is not thick enough
to be still is apparent. The cold get under my skin.

Not bear or fox. I’ve never seen a wolf
in the wild.

*

They found Ashley before I left.
Before that they found Olivia.

*

With the necks of 200 birds I could have made a garment
capable of these surroundings

if good enough for the sea. The mothers
would give them stories, stories, stories.

The children would watch, listen and learn.

But there’s the ropethe web
with its too-large
holes.

My families don’t tell stories, so
I must use the net. Kugyaq atuk’gka.

*

One, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand still waiting to be found.

Amlertut nuumiRat kalikami.

Keep counting.

*

The woman was full of rage.
The woman was full of vengeance.
The woman moved mountains and grew islands in the sea.

The woman was beautiful so beautiful
the cormorants decided to mate with her.

They changed shapes and took turns breeding with the woman
and flew away

and later when the woman had birthed
all the children the cormorants carried them in their mouths
like seed and sowed them all over the world

Does it follow each violent act bears fruit?

*

I’m supposed to have astonishing heat in my blood but
I think it’s all been let by Now.

Buildings are still dangerous
to enter.

Unsafe structures and
openings may be present.

The white dog’s teeth left my coat whole but the skin
was broken underneath.

I am guarding the slow heat from the wound.

*

I want to tell you too it is beautiful, that the walls here
are their own shade of green and where the ice is thin
blue becomes its own north light,but

the human characteristics are most evident
in the lines we cut.

The face falls away. Glaciers don’t grow back.

These openings are old and unmaintained
may be without breathable air.

Do not attempt to go under. Do not attempt to go back
wards.

Keep counting.

The melt is deep and wi’d’ing.