willypelemelenilly

For Angela

The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.

You knew I was coming for you, little one,
when the kettle jumped into the fire.
Towels flapped on the hooks,
and the dog crept off, groaning,
to the deepest part of the woods.

In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.
Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot
and called you to eat.
But I spoke in the cold trees:
New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still.

The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.
Copper burned in the raw wood.
You saw me drag toward you.
Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.
You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.

I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.
Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered
from the bushes we passed
until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.

Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full
of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill
all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth
and I carried you home,
a river shaking in the sun.

Louise Erdrich, “Windigo” from Jacklight (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1984). Copyright © 1984 by Louise Erdrich

— I love Louise Erdrich, every image is interesting. As for the story, I think it might serve as a metaphor for love relationships. The man is portrayed darkly at first, almost like he’s an animal hunting down the girl (the windigo is traditionally a cannibal). In the epigraph the girl is said to “vanquish” the beast by pouring boiling lard down its throat – maybe not just to melt the armor, but also to nourish the emerging man. In the poem, by comparison, the windigo enters into the engagement willingly, with longing even. And what a great way to imagine love: what turns ice to river.

“Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain is irresistible.” – W.B. Yeats

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.

— As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed that I remember more than when I was a child but I have fewer lifelong memories. It seems the most shocking and impressionable aspects of life are first encountered at a young age. Either that or as we get older, we just learn not to be surprised anymore – maybe it gives us more control. Anyway, I imagine that most black people have a memory like the one he describes; learning that race alone can make someone hate you has got to leave its mark.