Epilogue: Returning the Gift
Red over green, raspberries bead the thicket on a summer
afternoon. The blue jay picking on the other side of this patch has a
beak as redstained as my fingers, which go to my mouth as often
as to the bowl. I reach under the brambles for a dangling cluster
and there in the dappled shade is a grinning turtle, shin deep in
fallen fruit, stretching his neck up for more. I’ll let his berries be.
The earth has plenty and offers us abundance, spreading her gifts
over the green: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries,
currants—that we might fill our bowls. Niibin, we call summer in
Potawatomi, “the time of plenty,” and also time for our tribal
gathering, for powwows and ceremony.
Red over green, the blankets spread on the grass beneath the
arbor are piled high with gifts. Basketballs and furled umbrellas,
peyotestitched key chains and Ziploc bags of wild rice. Everybody
lines up to choose a gift while the hosts stand by, beaming. The
teenagers are dispatched to carry choice items to elders seated in
the circle, too frail to navigate the crowd. Megwech, megwech—the
thank yous circle among us. Ahead of me a toddler, besotted with