Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

The loudest of sounds
is the breath in my lungs, my voice
as I call to you, lake of my youth:
Remember me.
I too have come back to this navel
of the world, this womb
of the waters, this quencher
of age and weariness.
Finally, your secret is revealed to me
in God’s Eye weave of the thread of time:
The Eries came here for a winter festival,
carried a gourd with the old year’s sadness,
weighted it with a stone, canoed
and dropped it at your quiet center,
singing —
Hear us, O Lake of Little Snows —
Heed not the crane, the fish,
the deceitful song of the serpent —
Heed us, mother of tears and rivers.
We bring you a gourd, the gourd
our ancestors taught us to make.
Surely you are hungry, O Lake.
We have come many days to offer it,
suffered such dangers to please you!
Calmly the lake accepted the present.
The gourd sank fast and never returned.
In silence, the men returned to the shore,
banked their canoes and shouted with glee:
Jiyathontek! O Konneahti!
Onenh, wete-wenna-keragh-danyon!
Hear us, O Lake of Little Snows!
Today we have made the signs.
Again you ate the gourd and the stone.