RATIONING SWEETGRASS

a steadfast soul-birth, tried and true / this is where you sing creation into being

self-portrait as prairie sky
kokenewapikineyak horizon blush

wâsêtahkwakâ kistikân
self-portrait as my mourning breath

wrapped in basement flower sheet
this is where you lay to dream

self-portrait as shacking up in kokum’s basement
picking sage, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee

maskwamiy paints you her favourite colour of rouge when you fall
self-portrait as the land is your lover

a steadfast soul-birth, tried and true
this is where you sing creation into being

self-portrait as rationing sweetgrass
counting down the sunsets until you can go back to the land that raised you

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Editor’s Note: Tarene Thomas’s “RATIONING SWEETGRASS” places the Cree language in a poetic context in order to do the work of self-making. The oft-used “self-portrait” frame is operationalized differently here, however—not in order to sculpt a singular “I” but rather to put the poet in relation with the larger world, the past, and current and future ancestors. Thomas’s lyric voice is soft and multi-vocal and ultimately returns us to the land, a task as urgent and life-sustaining as ever.

– Billy-Ray Belcourt, poetry editor