Songs from Devil's Lake

"Still their glittering lodge is seen there,
On the tranquil Summer evenings,
And upon the shore the fisher
Sometimes hears their happy voices,
Sees them dancing in the starlight"
    – Longfellow, from The Song of Hiawatha







Songs from the great pillared rocks
rise up as if out of nowhere
rise up as if from ghosts still living
as the friendly visitors come walking
along the path of tumbled rock
along the shoreline where the soft
blue water laps up against the bluffs.

Songs from the great pillared rocks
windswept and swirling singing
the same voices forever wrapping
around the curves of the lake
and diving deep into the water
like long lost guides of the invisible.

Here is where the Ho Chunk thrived,
where bark canoes daily used to glide
and people held pouches of dried trout
as the hawk then still cried out loud
and the wings the same as they do
to this day rose up warm columns
of cool air above the pine cathedrals.