Grandmother, you chewed alder

to red paste,             mixed ash

from woodstoves,        a tincture

traced on swollen bellies, landmarks

for reindeer traveling             to the sun—

Charcoal figures: fisher and boat,

hunter’s bow,               a conduit        between

skydome

             and tundra.

You warmed painted hide

by camplight in the season     before black

robes silenced our     trances.        Now, I peer

at drummed bellies

beneath a tree rising              from center

and what remains,                 hidden

in mountains near seidda—rock piles,

beneath sedge—sun-skins now          mute

behind museum glass. I see your      patterns

moving            upon laavu walls

sketching tracks to the           pulse   of thumb,

hooves             on the rim of my drum,

a map

lingering with lichen-scent,                             signposts

herding         my migration towards home.