Danielle Hale
Blood Anxiety
Me
anxious blood metallic like water from copper bowls
mathematically the least while still mixing
red in a sea of white foam cells
and traditions stuffed hungrily
down my throat remembering taste of sweet
grass and cedar remembering
smoke rising toward Kookum
reaching down to stroke tear-streaked
cour-age gathered in shaking hands that know
not everything or sometimes nothing
raised palms out to remember
to learn to earn to gather to know
more than mothers but always less less less;
dancing on roots through beaten
grass steps small but stronger stronger
stronger, traditions flow through like blood until
they become me which becomes
You
who travels metallic foamy sea
bursting: all traditions no blood
belonging to no one and everyone teaching me
as I learn you the taste of my blood in the cedar
anxious blood metallic like water from copper bowls
mathematically the least while still mixing
red in a sea of white foam cells
and traditions stuffed hungrily
down my throat remembering taste of sweet
grass and cedar remembering
smoke rising toward Kookum
reaching down to stroke tear-streaked
cour-age gathered in shaking hands that know
not everything or sometimes nothing
raised palms out to remember
to learn to earn to gather to know
more than mothers but always less less less;
dancing on roots through beaten
grass steps small but stronger stronger
stronger, traditions flow through like blood until
they become me which becomes
You
who travels metallic foamy sea
bursting: all traditions no blood
belonging to no one and everyone teaching me
as I learn you the taste of my blood in the cedar
Commentary
Danielle on "Blood Anxiety":
The other day, I saw a post on Twitter that got me thinking about the languages I should be able to call mine—Ojibwe, Cree, and Michif—but which I don’t actually speak. I do know a few words and phrases in Ojibwe and maybe a handful of words in Cree and Michif, and I use them as best I can in my poetry (for example, the hyphen in “cour-age” is a play on the French/Michif word for “heart”), but the loss of language can cause a lot of anxiety, as can the loss of culture. I come from cultures that were almost wiped out by settlers and colonizers, and the attempts have never been accidental. People know about the movement onto reservations. They know about smallpox blankets. But fewer people know about the Indigenous women who underwent forced sterilization for completely unrelated medical issues into the 1970s, or how our people—mostly women—have been disappearing for much longer than the MMIW movement has existed. There’s a long history of trauma that’s been passed down to me, and I carry that with me.
But I also carry traditions and teachings that were almost lost to my family. My mother knows more about our traditions than her mother did, and I want to learn more than either of them, not to one-up them or be better than them, but so I can pass those things down to my own children when I have them. That’s what this poem is about: passing traditions and teachings to the next generation, even though my siblings and I are the last ones in our immediate family to be legally considered Indigenous. I married another Anishinaabe, but our blood quantums (the amount of Indian blood we possess) don’t add up to enough for our children to be enrolled members of a tribe, too. And because of that, they will have to rely solely on culture, not blood or legality, to understand where they come from. “Blood Anxiety” is a lament of that loss, but it’s also a love song—a promise—to my future children: that I’m going to do my best to ensure they have a strong understanding of their cultures and what it means to be Indigenous.
The other day, I saw a post on Twitter that got me thinking about the languages I should be able to call mine—Ojibwe, Cree, and Michif—but which I don’t actually speak. I do know a few words and phrases in Ojibwe and maybe a handful of words in Cree and Michif, and I use them as best I can in my poetry (for example, the hyphen in “cour-age” is a play on the French/Michif word for “heart”), but the loss of language can cause a lot of anxiety, as can the loss of culture. I come from cultures that were almost wiped out by settlers and colonizers, and the attempts have never been accidental. People know about the movement onto reservations. They know about smallpox blankets. But fewer people know about the Indigenous women who underwent forced sterilization for completely unrelated medical issues into the 1970s, or how our people—mostly women—have been disappearing for much longer than the MMIW movement has existed. There’s a long history of trauma that’s been passed down to me, and I carry that with me.
But I also carry traditions and teachings that were almost lost to my family. My mother knows more about our traditions than her mother did, and I want to learn more than either of them, not to one-up them or be better than them, but so I can pass those things down to my own children when I have them. That’s what this poem is about: passing traditions and teachings to the next generation, even though my siblings and I are the last ones in our immediate family to be legally considered Indigenous. I married another Anishinaabe, but our blood quantums (the amount of Indian blood we possess) don’t add up to enough for our children to be enrolled members of a tribe, too. And because of that, they will have to rely solely on culture, not blood or legality, to understand where they come from. “Blood Anxiety” is a lament of that loss, but it’s also a love song—a promise—to my future children: that I’m going to do my best to ensure they have a strong understanding of their cultures and what it means to be Indigenous.
Biography
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Danielle Hale (she/her/hers) is an Indigenous poet who grew up off the reservation but, because of a persistent mother and a thirst to know herself, is constantly (re)learning what it means to be Anishinabekwe/Metis. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, The Broken Cassette, and The Citron Review. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Danielle holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of North Dakota and currently resides in Wisconsin where she teaches writing.
Twitter: @DanielleHale1 |
