Putting Down Roots
A summer day on the banks of the Mohawk River:
Én:ska, tékeni, áhsen. Bend and pull, bend and pull. Kaié:ri, wísk,
iá:ia’k, tsiá:ta, she calls to her granddaughter, standing waist deep
in the grass. Her bundle grows thicker with every stoop of her back.
She straightens up, rubs the small of her back, and tilts her head
up to the blue summer sky, her black braid swinging in the arch of
her back. Bank swallows twitter over the river. The breeze off the
water sets the grasses waving and carries the fragrance of
sweetgrass that rises from her footsteps.
A spring morning four hundred years later:
Én:ska, tékeni, áhsen. One, two, three; bend and dig, bend and
dig. My bundle grows smaller with every stoop of my back. I drive
my trowel into the soft ground and rock it back and forth. It scrapes
against a buried stone and I dig my fingers in to unearth it, cast the
stone aside to make an apple-sized hole big enough for the roots.
From the tangled bundle wrapped in burlap, my fingers separate
out a single clump of sweetgrass. I set it in the hole, scoop soil
around it, speak words of welcome, and tamp it down. I straighten