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Borrowing Blue
I’m not the painter here. I leave that to you, but blue
is the color of my father’s camping cup, left tonight
on the Formica counter. This pen I am writing with.
and the beaded moccasins and belt I danced in
before my mother died.
My grandmother had made these for her as a child—
spelling out in blue beads on blue beads
each of our names, our collective history
in an invisible pattern only we would recognize.
Not the blue of Montana sky either,
not that at all, but the pulse of lake water lapping
at your ankles, the temperature rising
as a storm gathers on the plains.
The push and pull of forgiveness.
I’m already thinking of leaving again.
Did I tell you this? How can I speak of this wind,
how it has no color, no sense,
no guilt. It makes me feel even more lonely
than I would ever let on.
I’m guessing you figured this much already.
(We will never stop missing them, will we,
the parent each of us has lost.)
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what I would see
in the paintings if I were to visit you.
I like to think there would be some kind of end
to the blue, a visual end to what is never
adequate: blue flame, blue bead, blue ovary,
blue lung. See how easily we fail?
How can we believe that our secrets are in good hands—
yours resting at the bottom of Flathead Lake, mine held
in a small leather suitcase beneath the stairs.
I have not worn those moccasins or that belt for over
six years now. We should both be ashamed.
Look at us. Look, as the grey fog
settles into your streets outside, how the near-white
canvases wait. You almost didn’t notice again.
Just like I almost didn’t notice the wind
dying down for evening.
So yes, let’s call it Montana blue, the vanishing point:
Maybe this is the real reason I have never learned
to trust in color. How can you take back
the kind of blue you’ve been dreaming of—trust
it will make something unhappen—
if it is the same blue you’re made of?
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M.L. Smoker is a member of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. She currently serves as co-poet laureate for the state of Montana, alongside her longtime friend, Melissa Kwasny. ◙ She holds an MFA from the University of Montana in Missoula, where she was the recipient of the Richard Hugo Fellowship. In 2019 she was recognized as an alumna of the year by the University. ◙ Her first collection of poems, Another Attempt at Rescue, was published by Hanging Loose Press in 2005. In 2009 she co-edited an anthology of human rights poetry with Melissa Kwasny entitled, I Go to the Ruined Place. She received a regional Emmy award for her work as a writer/consultant on the PBS documentary Indian Relay. ◙ She served as the Director of Indian Education for the state of Montana for almost ten years. In 2015 she was named the Indian Educator of the Year by the National Indian Education Association and was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education by President Barack Obama. She currently works at Education Northwest as a practice expert in Indian Education. [For more on M.L. Smoker, click here.]
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Flathead Lake, Montana