mishigamaa

She carries the bones of my grandmother, my Synara, my Chaska, my Persephone.
She carries my childhood and my brother's children. She carries my pain, my marriage license, my bad credit.
She is white and cold and green and hot. She is nothing but silence and death in February and nothing but noise and life in July.
She is nobody's paradise but a few wily, stoic reformed Protestants.
For miles of sandy beach she is unfulfilled promise, for acres of invisible forest she is fulfilled greed.
She will freeze us, she will bite us, she will dazzle us, she will bake us until we surrender or run.
I have flown above her enough to know she likes to keep her veil close and her skirts patchwork.
I have run away enough to know she won't change. I have returned enough to know I won't remain unchanged.
When I look out from the balcony of my tropical city flat and see men in orange working underneath trees who are shedding leaves, my heart feels Thanksgiving because of her.
I have come to know now that wherever I go and however long I stay, when people ask me what tribe I am from, it will forever be her name I repeat....my beautiful mantra
Michigan
Michigan
Michigan
Michigan