Poem- Wendigo

The Wendigo is a cannibal spirit found in the mythology of many Native tribes of the Great Lakes region. The poem was inspired by a late-night drive across the Upper Peninsula, from the Porcupine Mountains to the Mackinac Bridge.


Wendigo

The highways stretch like strands of a thin net cast by men
over the peninsula to ensnare untamed things
that linger yet among the trees--
to sate the wind's hungry moan.
There are wolves here, I imagine, and moose,
but no men. No men for long miles.

Hardwoods lean in from both sides, clutching at the hi-beams
as an aggressive beat melds my body with the accelerator.
Snow falls in slow fat flakes, but at this speed
the hyperspace mesmer looms-- radiant specks gaining dimension,
points becoming lines. They promise collision, but careen away
into the darkness, out of the swath of the headlamps,
out of luminance, forgotten.

And every few hundred yards the pavement is stained:
mottled brown from old kills, or spattered a vibrant red--
blood from wolf, or moose, or man.

The bodies are nowhere now--
Track and trace obscured by gusting
and the Norths white teeth.

Deep in the forest,
a pine bough exhales piled snow like hot breath
in the frost. Powder crashes into powder
with a muffled thump, and there is stillness.

In the long houses of the Ojibwe it is whispered
that as it feeds
it grows.




Background image by miki3d of DeviantArt.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• wendigo
• cryptids
• native american myth
• upper peninsula
• U.P.
• original poetry
• poetry reading
• poem
• strider scion
• striderscion

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