Editor’s note: This week, Deep Water is excited to welcome the first of three upcoming guest editors – Maine poets who will bring an exciting new range of poetic voices to the column. This poem, Jason Grundstrom-Whitney’s “Rock Bowl,” was chosen and is introduced by Maliseet poet Mihku Paul, whose poem “Afterlife” appeared last week.
Jason Grundstrom-Whitney’s use of archetypes in “Rock Bowl” brings a mythic storytelling aspect to the poem that is simultaneously universal and intimate. This poem is a vignette that evokes the land as relation through richly detailed language and the ceremonial behaviors of Bear, Raven and Coyote. The poem is both lament and invitation to imagine a deeper reverence for the earth.
Grundstrom-Whitney is a Passamaquoddy poet, musician and activist who also performs his work in the band Osha Root. His first book, “Bear, Coyote, Raven,” was published in 2019 by Resolute Bear Press, based Down East. Grundstrom-Whitney lives and works in Monmouth.
Rock Bowl
By Jason Grundstrom-Whitney
Bear carried a drop of
the Atlantic Ocean in a tiny vial.
Raven had flown to the Northwest
and carried back a vial with
a single drop of the Pacific Ocean.
Coyote held a single dewdrop
from a Mountain Ball Cactus flower
from Bryce Canyon.
Three directions—this year it was Deer’s turn
for the fourth. She brought a drop of water
from the Colorado River.
They met in northern Arizona,
now called the Four Corners,
and placed the drops in a rock bowl
they used each year.
Each added sacred medicines—
cedar, sage, sweetgrass,
and tobacco.
They stirred
medicine, water, and fine red earth
into the bowl formation.
Bear prayed over the water
and medicine mixture.
It took longer each year
for this to work.
Water tables ran low;
the ocean cried in pollution.
After several days
the rain fell again.
Bear, Coyote, Raven, and Deer
fell asleep near the rock bowl
and dreamed of golden tassels of corn
singing in the southeastern breeze.
Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Rock Bowl,” copyright © 2019 by Jason Grundstrom-Whitney, reprinted from “Bear, Coyote, Raven,” published by Resolute Bear Press. It appears by permission of the author.
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