Transformation: Into the Telluric:

I have often been fascinated by how my poems change and metamorphose. This past week I decided to look back at one poem in particular that appears in this book. It first appeared on my Hiking Blog: "Helder~Hiking Adventures!" back in November of 2010 with pictures and was also accompanied by a poem by Alan Casline. Both poems were a poetic experiment in response to our hike together on Bennett Hill. I actually wrote mine on my then new iPad as I hiked. It was immediate, impressionistic and spontaneous.

Not long afterwards Alan published it as a Broadside. Not much had changed at that point with the exception of some of the line formatting. The differences were subtle.

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Last year as I collected and composed this cycle of poems into a cohesive narrative things changed. I had hiked Bennett Hill several more times by then. Alone, and in different weather conditions at various times of the year. It had become home. Less a place of the world, more a place of contemplation, spiritual communion and reflection. 

Chronologically it is located fairly early in the cycle and as it was one of the first pieces completed soon after moving here that makes sense. This is how it appears in  "A Mythological Map of The Telluric Voices poems: What they symbolize and how they fit along The Path Of The Poet's' Journey."

3.) Nò ŏnŏquaàm: (I have had a beautiful dream.) Departure- "Supernatural Aid." Timeframe: One Autumn day.

The complete "Map" was an invaluable tool as I wrote and gathered the cycle. This much organization and ridged criteria is not normally characteristic of me but in this case it allowed me to focus and stick with the poetic path as it were. It allowed me see where I had been, where I was going and track my spiritual growth as well. (At some point in the future I will post the complete "Map" for the curious.) Here then, as summer swelters and beats on, is the finished poem as it appears in the book:

~

"He now came in view of land, on which he debarked in safety, and could see the lodge of the Shining Manito[*], situated on a hill."  -Henry Rowe Schoolcraft: Algic Researches. 

~

Nò ŏnŏquaàm:
 (I have had a beautiful dream.)

Wachtschù Mennitow [†]

your
arboreous-mane

now
autumn tincture

I stand alone

in white-pine grove
          search
for wetland

blinded
          by sunlight

crash through trees 

walk false trail
                      circle
                summit
 of dreams 

~

Listen

         trains

                 blow distance

         call me home 

to yesterdays

Shaman in tree-mask
speaks
 through wood:

"Lost one

             follow oak

                          don't forget"

~

        Switch-
 back
         down
       your
spine

Into
 shade
 your shalier
side
Birch litters
           your
           cliffs

       Sloping
    down
sharply

to moss
     covered
     lowlands
     of home

~

Here
       trail
less
      clearly

marked
I search again

make way
 to infinite
 futures

drink
 then onwards

find
 sacred spring
  encourage flow

drink
 say prayer

rest.

~

[*] Manito: 'Spirit' -Henry Rowe Schoolcraft: Algic Researches. Schoolcraft was working with the Ojibwa language. The Mahican equivalent would be 'Mennitow'

[†] Wachtschù: 'Mountain, or hill.' :Schmick's Mahican Dictionary Edited by Carl Masthay. I have created Wachtschù Mennitow for my own purposes and in my own spiritual imaginings. Hence: Wachtschù [Mountian] Mennitow [Spirit].

obeedúid~

20/July/12

From Onisketau to Nkensittawãn: (I will listen.)

The original poem: "Onisketau", the poem that it became: "Nkensittawãn: (I will listen.)" and the video that is based on the original poem; was the impetuous for what became this cycle. It was the first poem that I wrote that gave me a feeling that this place was saying something to me; that I was now living somewhere that was changing me and my outlook on my world. It spawned my interest and launched me on this journey. 

It was therefore created early on in the process of my research as well. The original spelling "Onisketau" came from maps and seemed to be the earliest authoritative spelling. This was before I found the transcription of the Slingerlands Patent and when I was relying as most do on "Beauchamp's Aboriginal Place Names Of New York State." in various versions (1893 to 1906) and "The Composition of Indian Geographical Names Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages" by J. Hammond Trumbull (1870). 

When I found the transcription of the Slingerlands Patent and it's indication that it was sold by the Ma-quaes [Mohawks] (after they drove the Mahicans out subsequent to their victory over them at the the end of their war with each other in 1628.) and it included the spelling and pronunciation "Onesquethaw" (O-nits-quat-haa) in the "Bi-centennial History of Albany: History of the County of Albany 1609-1886..., Volume 2 By George Rogers Howell, Jonathan Tenney" (1886) I suspected that Beauchamp's translation and meaning of : "Corn Field Creek" based as it seemed to me solely on the similarity to the word for maze was incorrect. 

The difficulty of analyzing early names is greatly increased by the fact that they come to us in corrupt forms. The same name may be found, in early records, written in a dozen different ways, and some three or four of these may admit of as many different translations. 

Beauchamp used many sources and I have as well. I finally arrived at the conclusion that the Slingerlands Patent spelling and attribution were correct when I found on the Internet that a native speaker of Ma-quae [Mohawk] had translated it as 'Sinking-stream'. 

While the area is and has been surrounded by cornfields, and has been used for centuries for such purposes, the geographical features of the stream rise, fall and at times disappear underground. Thus the name 'Sinking-stream' seems from my point of view to be decisive and as close to the true meaning as it is possible to get. I am more familiar with the topography now than I was when I first came to this place. 

The corrected poem as it stands in this cycle is therefore different in it's usage and translation than in the video. To recreate the video at this point armed with this advanced knowledge however seems pointless. 

The video was experimental in it's nature with regards to my use of cinematic techniques available to me at the time. When I first created it I had only just discovered that I was capable of using green screen on my computer. I remember it's creation as being fun and exhilarating. But as I look at it now I wish that I had done some things differently. 

I present them both here for comparison as an interesting contrast only; a comparison of how things change in creation. They stand therefore as a time capsule and an interesting step in the creative process. Someday, with time and more advanced technology I may attempt to create a more definitive version. 

In the cycle, as it is indicated in the table of contents, the original poem "Onisiketau" is now number 9.) "Nkensittawãn: (I will listen.)" and represents the Initiation- "Meeting/Hearing the Goddess." Timeframe: Winter. 

Here then is the videO'em in it's original form:

~


And the poem as it stands now in it's final form:


Nkensittawãn: (I will listen.)


I hear
your voice
calling to me

From my back porch
through the trees
over the distance

Broken by season
severity of temperature
and lack of snowshoes

Onesquethaw
you sing to me
from the cold dark
depths
of your mountains
shadow

Onesquethaw
you call to me
in the full moon
of night

and I long
ache
dream

of you
in the light

of autumn
spring
summer

But can not
imagine you

burbling

in this bitter
angry
wasted land

winter.

~

The poem itself has not changed much. Only the spelling of Onesquethaw (which is the same modern day spelling) and its meaning have altered. For me this not only strengthens it's allure it tells me the from the beginning I have been on the right path! 

obeedúid~ 

05/June/12