This is a poetically charged work of autobiographical retrospection, speculative memory and an artistic alternative to common constructions of identity. The influences include traditional songs, ceremonial undercurrents, dream vehicles, disparate landscapes, chemical vapors, relative longings and belief in the possibility of healing again and again even after death. Some works herein are water-source clear, some are abstract meditative breaths, some are ironic dialogues with memorial humor and some are attempts to tease characters out into the open. This collection is held together by relatives, fragments, an undeniable belief in the creative force of even the slightest wisp of memory.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements BESHIG: THE FAILURE OF CERTAIN CHARMS Calendar of Wasted Seasons Sleeping In Rain Waking on a Greyhound Going West Outside White Earth Shell Lake White Earth August Again Leaving Smoke’s At Once You Recall the Thunder Song Beyond the Refuge When Names Escaped Us The Failure of Certain Charms NEESH: HOW SOON THE STORY GOES Calendar of a Wasted Life Entries Into the Autobiographical I The First Door: I As Not I The Second Door: I as Traveler I Third Door: I As Alter I – An Autobiographical Meta-Tale on Writing Fourth Door: I As Still Open I, from Spain The Saxophonist’s Meta-Americana Tour October Naming River People – The Lost Watch Insulin Syringe Blues in the Key of Turtle Mountain The Rumors Around Us A Medicine Song Jazz Tune for a Hiawatha Woman October Minnehaha Avenue Postmodern Rez Edge Inhalation: Paint Thinner Sublime How Soon NISSWAY: DIRECTIONS FROM THE SOVEREIGN OF ENTELECHY Calendar of Wasted Seasons Gaween – Self Portrait: Letter to the Agency Superintendent: November Becomes the SkyWith Suppers for the Dead Untitled Crow Abstract Windows Against the Rain Letter to the School Superintendent: Primitive Epidermal Song Imperial Lord Woosintoon Abstract on Imperialist Cartographics Song for the One Called Enemy Lost Hunter – Under Hidden Constellations Another Academic’s Last Hope for Coyote Monologue Simple Four Part Directions for Making Indian Lit Repeat Smoke Smudge Rinse Repeat Hope Returns a Lost Whistle Directions to the Sovereign of Entelechy NEEWIN: AFTER ZAHQUOD Calendar of Wasted Seasons Ahwosso – Past Song for a SisterWho Won’t Let Go Guessing at the Weight of Spirit Profile of a Black River Member Remembering Shadow:In the Art of Not Crying Rez Edged Suicide Muse Oshawanung Manido Equay White Cloud Woman through a Southern Window Sonny’s Wake 2000 White Cloud Woman at Dawn Dodem Dream Song Recount to a Black River Elder Pipestone: The Best Conversations That Never Took Place Before the Thirsty Dance A Black River Elder Pretends Traveling Among Strangers Zahquod’s Land Blue Thunder Boy Healing Song