Poem of the Week: "Spirit in the Flute" by Michael G. Smith

I walk an already trodden path... Uncertain, of future lives that lie ahead But, in faith I close these earthly Ojibwa eyes In trill, thus, I hear the old ways in your presence amidst Chinook winds As harmonic they play across the plains, from sacred astral pipes Mimicking cricket songs that echo abstract out of the season's last autumn mist I also hear your fifes in the rustle of the leaves, rising into writhe And almost see your spirit aura as it accompanies the Algonquian breeze Ancient ghost of proud, but now lost upon a dying nation tribe Your music from beyond is narrations of a mystical language nature speaks Sweeping thrush calls, chirps through weeping willow weeps, Unto past September sounds, beating down on war drum clouds, of thundering maelstrom claps And babbling brooks going on and on until narrowing creaky creeks Alas, whooper wills warning and morning loons mourning, hidden amidst the swaying grass When I see you, I imagine spectral legends majestic high across horizon's sky Snowy silhouettes in headdress, drifting in flowing rainbow crowns And with the night, I see you in my mind dance as the "Will-Ó-the-wisp" just might Then, my body shivers from the distance, where your flute imitates the cry of the lone coyote's sound As for all of your Mishomis (grandfather) traditions, I accept there is a greater essence Kindred I am, son to your spirit and without partition from an Ojibwa eye And I stand here staunch in cattail marshes, pondering my place in ancestral questions Now, your answers again begin to play upon the wind, but this time traveling through the November... Whispers on needles of the pine I walk an already trodden path... But, each new step before me keeps this culture alive...