Was It Princess Moonbeam or Shining Star?

The following Mary Oliver poem I discovered this morning really triggered some childhood memories of when Betty and I used to play cowboys and Indians. We were usually cowboys, well, cowgirls I guess, but once in awhile we were Indians. That was when we made camp in the grove of locust trees up at the other place. I've been trying to remember my Indian name. Those two guesses in the above title probably come close.

But now that I know I do have some Native American ancestors (blog post April 27, 2024, "Meet My Native American 7x Great-Grandfather) I have been trying to find a translation for the one woman mentioned by name - Waikusanin. I even tried the Delaware/Lenape Talking Dictionary and got no translation. But I did find this Lenape name: "Weenjipahkihelexkwe" which means "Touching Leaves Woman".  I can't pronounce the Lenape name, but I'm going to pretend that Touching Leaves was my great-great-aunt - just as Aunt Leaf  was the one Mary Oliver imagined. Here is her beautiful poem:

Aunt Leaf  by Mary Oliver

Needing one, I invented her -
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker -
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish - and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

 

I never knew any of my great-great aunts well enough to imagine one of them being the aunt of this poem.

But I can certainly imagine my dear Aunt Leona (Dad's sister) and me having the kind of day described in Oliver's poem. 💚