Kimberly M. Blaeser (born 1955) is a Native American poet and writer enrolled in the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She was the Wisconsin Poet Laureate 2015–16.
ABOUT STANDING (IN KINDSHIP)
Kimberly Blaeser
We all have the same little bones in our foot
twenty-six with funny names like navicular.
Together they build something strong—
our foot arch a pyramid holding us up.
The bones don’t get casts when they break.
We tape them—one phalange to its neighbor for support.
(Other things like sorrow work that way, too—
find healing in the leaning, the closeness.)
Our feet have one quarter of all the bones in our body.
Maybe we should give more honor to feet
and to all those tiny but blessed cogs in the world—
communities, the forgotten architecture of friendship.
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AFTER WORDS
Kimberly Blaeser
Because the smallness of our being
is our only greatness.
Because one night I was in a room
listening until only one heart beat.
Because in these last years I’ve
worn and worn and nearly worn out
my black funeral shoes.
Because the gesture of after words
means the same thing no matter
who speaks them.
Because faith belief forever
are only words, no matter.
Because matter disappears
always and eventually.
Because action is not matter
but energy
that spent, changes being.
And if death, too, is a change of being
perhaps action counts.
And if death is a land of unknowing,
perhaps we do well to live with uncertainty.
And if death is a forested land,
it would be good to learn trees.
And if death is a kingdom,
it would be good to practice service.
And if death is a foreign state
we should loosen allegiance to this one.
And if the soul leaves our body
then we must rehearse goodbye.
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WHAT I BELIEVE
Kimberly Blaeser
after Michael Blumenthal
I believe the weave of cotton
will support my father’s knees,
but no indulgences will change hands.
I believe nothing folds easily,
but that time will crease—
retrain the mind.
I believe in the arrowheads of words
and I believe in silence.
I believe the rattle of birch leaves
can shake sorrow from my bones,
but that we all become bare at our own pace.
I believe the songs of childhood
follow us into the kettles of age,
but the echoes will not disturb the land.
I believe the reach of the kayak paddle
can part the blue corridor of aloneness,
and that eyes we see in water are never our own.