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Grandmother
In the Boarding School for Indian girls,
the oil
lantern was a campfire on the table
at night.
Shadows flickered the wall where
animals prowled.
Some girls died with smallpox. Others
screamed when
they saw their faces. At night I felt
the old burn
on my cheek & sang the Medicine Song.
I watched the
Ancestors rise in half-sleep—
Warrior strutted
across the pitted face of moon—
Chanting against
sickness.
—from “Death Cry for the Language”
This poetic accounting of Diane Glancy’s own life is based on the image of the pictographic calendar of the Dakota Nation. Lone Dog recorded his calendar on Buffalo hide, each pictograph signifying an outstanding event in the life of his people from 1800 through 1871.
With contemporary pictographs in the form of poems, Glancy depicts events using time not in chronological order but as a vehicle for voices in the flow of past and present.
“Heartbreak as well as triumphant inwardness—these two sides of the Native American heritage are the coordinates of Diane Glancy’s poetry”
— World Literature Today
Diane Glancy, of Cherokee descent, is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, fiction, and memoir.
Lone Dog’s Winter Count was winner of the Minnesota Book Award in 1991.