Reprise: "Let’s recognize our need for awe."
"These Rivers Remember" by Native American poet Roberta Hill
Originally published on “How to Grow a Poem” in November 2023.
There is no monument—not even a discreet historic marker—to be found in the 21st century bustle of downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. Nothing to indicate that one is standing on, or near, sacred ground, Maka coka-ya kin, the center of the Earth.
In fact, it’s likely that few who step there are mindful of that fact. Instead, a modern American city has supplanted the history and traditions of the land’s earlier inhabitants, the Dakota Sioux, who knew this to be a holy place, bracketed by the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, which flow together a bit to the south amid a tangle of highways and bridges.
Still, if the ancient memories have been largely erased for most current-day residents, Native American poet and scholar Roberta Hill might tell you that These Rivers Remember. That, after all, is both the title and the sense of a poem she wrote some forty years ago to capture something of “the flow of rivers/and their memories of turning/and change.”
Hill, now Professor Emerita of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is an internationally recognized poet, fiction writer, and scholar whose work appears in numerous collections, journals, and anthologies (see bio below), and an Oneida Native American.
The poem was written when Hill was tasked, as one of “five or six” poets, by the Science Museum of Minnesota to create public art works (hers was originally displayed on a bridge) that referred to the rivers that are so much a part of the region. As is her usual poetry practice, she said, “I just listened to what words were coming forward” in an effort to reach the “emotional truth” of the poem.
“The emotional truth of this poem,” she said, “is our connection to the Earth and to each other. We are intimately connected to everything, and that connection is still elemental.”
Like a river, perhaps, “These Rivers Remember” flows swiftly through centuries of Dakota history and sensibilities, in a stream of powerfully evocative images that recall the spiritual essence of the people, and of the land “beneath the tarmac and steel in St. Paul.”
Sprinkled throughout are Dakota words and phrases largely made accessible by context and the clues Hill offers in the text. Still, at least one phrase—Kangi Ci’stin’na’s tears—will benefit from an explanation, as Hill offers in notes to some published versions of the poem.
Kangi Ci’stin’na was the warrior and chief (known to 19th century white settlers as Little Crow) who led the Dakota in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, when broken government promises resulted in widespread hunger for the Native Americans dispossessed of their land. (That war is probably best known to contemporary Americans as the occasion of the largest mass hanging in the nation’s history, when Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 warriors.)
“Native people believe that if you speak, your words are truthful,” Hill said.
But it’s another recurring conceit that remains at the center of the poem, as it were. In the opening lines, we are introduced to “Bdo-te, Center of the Earth” (“north of here”) and in the final stanza to “Maka coka-ya kin, The Center of the Earth,” a bit to the south at the confluence of the rivers. And throughout the poem images of connectedness further paint a picture of harmony, and a fluid invitation to meet where that center lies.
Sit where there’s a center and a drum, feel the confluence of energies enter our hearts so their burning begins to matter.
It’s a mistake, Hill said, “to think of the center as a single reference point, rather than in its metaphorical sense. . . . Orientation [of space] is fluid, kind of like the rivers.
“You can sit anywhere. We also are the center of the Earth, in our moment of recognizing that the Earth itself is beating. Then we can become aware of our connectedness,” Hill said, drawing on a concept common to not only the Dakota, but also many other Native American peoples.
“Wherever a human being is aware of that harmony, there is the center of the Earth,” she said.
Here then is These Rivers Remember, which can also be found in her book Cicadas: New and Selected Poems from Holy Cow! Press.
These Rivers Remember In these rivers, on these lakes Bde-wa’-kan-ton-wan saw the sky. North of here lies Bdo-te, Center of the Earth. Through their songs, the wind held onto visions. We still help earth walk her spiral way, feeling the flow of rivers and their memories of turning and change. Circle on circle supports us. Beneath the tarmac and steel in St. Paul, roots of the great wood are swelling with an energy no one dare betray. The white cliffs, I-mni-za Ska, know the length of Kangi Ci’stin’na’s tears. He believed that words spoken held truth and was driven into hunger. Beneath the cliffs, fireflies flickered through wide swaths of grass. Oaks grew on savannahs, pleasant in the summer winds where deer remain unseen. These rivers remember their ancient names, Ha-ha Wa-kpa, where people moved in harmony thousands of years before trade became more valuable than lives. In their songs, the wind held onto visions. Let’s drop our burdens and rest. Let’s recognize our need for awe. South of here, the rivers meet and mingle. Bridges and roads, highway signs, traffic ongoing. Sit where there’s a center and a drum, feel the confluence of energies enter our hearts so their burning begins to matter. This is Maka coka-ya kin, The Center of the Earth.
—Roberta Hill, Cicadas: New and Selected Poems, (Duluth, MN Holy Cow! Press) 2013, 133.
Roberta J. Hill (aka Roberta Hill Whiteman), an Oneida poet, fiction writer and scholar is the author of Star Quilt (Holy Cow! Press, 1985, 2001); Her Fierce Resistance, (Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1993), Philadelphia Flowers (Holy Cow! Press, 1996) and Cicadas: New and Selected Poetry, (Holy Cow! Press, 2013). Her poetry has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, most recently When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (2020), and Rocked by the Waters: Poems of Motherhood (2020). She has read nationally and internationally.
Her short story, “Reading the Streets” was published in the International Writing Program’s online journal, Narrative Witness #2, “Indigenous Peoples: Australia-United States” online: https://iwpcollections.squarespace.com/nw2-roberta-hill.
A Professor of English and American Indian Studies at UW-Madison, she directed American Indian Studies Program shortly before her retirement in 2020. Currently Professor Emerita, she lives, writes and drums in the Driftless area of Wisconsin.
I love this "class," Ken. I'm learning so much and enjoying every "lesson." I also love this beautiful poem and know that Roberta Hill's message has entered me to stay. I'm grateful for that.
What a lovely poem, and so needed today. I will try to remain at the center. Thank you, Roberta Hill, and thank you Ken for introducing this poem.