Small Book of Poetry

Zhaabwii (survive)

Pillagers, the outcasts of Argus

Once lived in a forest populated by ghosts

Because of this we didn't get any outside folk.

Due to a sickness that swept our clan

Moses and I were left to roam the land.

Seventeen, I was when I escaped all the ghosts who roamed the house

I was so skinny and pale, I could have been a mouse.

A man named Nanapush shielded me as if I was his own

Putting blankets all over my chilly bones.

With each day I improved in small ways

Each more dramatic than the last.

My gaze focused

My skin cool and damp

Then the last thing I had lost but now regained

Is the memory and clear head to keep me sane.

Me and Nanapush could feel the ghosts follow us home

Their names filled me, revealing the living have an empty dome.

Their words returned me to that once ghost filled house now with me,

The ghost of ghosts, the one true survivor.