There’s a place just north of the Milk River, west of Writing-on-Stone, where large mounds of rocky, dusty soil appear and a coulee winds its way, tough prairie grass and shrubby sage along the bottom. There are silty streams of pale damp earth, their edges scattered with haphazard groups of large stones lichen patched in shades of red and rust and black. Large stones also sit atop the various mounds while the silty ground below holds footprints of various animals that have walked through, my prints joining them.
Yesterday the west wind whipped between these mounds and on the top it was too cold and strong to stand for long without getting all the warmth driven from my body. But on a sheltered eastern side of one of the hilly mounds, I sat and opened Napi’s Dance and read aloud to the land.
The Sweetgrass Hills rose up in the southeast, snow-covered already, blue-gray above the dry brown grasslands on the border of winter.
This fulfilled a promise I made – to read aloud to the land, in gratitude and in recognition of its great presence. And the land listened.
Pretty sweet day indeed.
On this visit to read to Napi’s Land, I returned to where the cover photo was taken, in the company of a friend who also loves this living land. She would read a poem honoring her experience in a place not far from this. I was returning to read Napi’s Braid to the land, to complete the cycle of the novel.
The wind, as it usually does here, blew strong. Ninaiistako (Chief Mountain) had been shrouded in cloud all morning, from every view we had as we drove to this place. Arriving here, as if the curtains for the play were drawn open, the wind blew aside the grey and we both read with the mountain clear before us and the wind still strong. I could barely hear my own voice over its roar.
But I knew that the land, that the mountain, would hear these words that come from the heart, no matter how loud the wind. I knew they were heard. So grateful for all that brought me here this day: the wonder of this place, the company of a friend who shares the heartful honoring of all it gives, and the People who have kept their promises to this land. I have kept a promise also.
