on the coldest day of winter
at the clearing,
where Long Pond froze over
seashell in one hand,
a fist-full of cedar and sage
in the other,
you pierce the snow bank with
a seabird’s feather
you light sage
smudge
under boot soles
over your pants
onto winter jacket
and across your chest
down one arm, then the other
and above your cap
Keptmite’tmnej ta’n teli-l’nuulti’kw
Nikma’jtut mawita’nej
then you smudge
cedar under my boots
up my leggings
across my womb
and breasts, linger
over my heart
we lock eyes until
smoke dissolves
Kepmite’tmnej ta’n wetapeksulti’kw
Nikma’jtut apoqnmatultinej
you sing Kepmite’tmnej,
a Mi’kmaq honour song,
clouds of hot breath
hover around winter-bare trees
the song drifts across the lake
Apoqnmatultinej ta’n Kisu’lkw
Tel-ika’luski’kw ula wskitqamu’k
we walk back to the car
close to the road, you point
at healing plants, dark greens
poke out of paper-white snow
SHANNON WEBB-CAMPBELL is an award-winning poet, writer and journalist of mixed Aboriginal ancestry. She is the inaugural winner of Egale Canada’s Out in Print Award and was the Canadian Women in Literary Arts 2014 critic-in-residence. Still No Word (Breakwater Books), her first collection, is out March 1. She lives in Halifax.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.