White and cold and rotund
full moon throws to earth
its lovely lumens
asleep or awake
your eyes are drawn to the light
this November eve
the Algonquin is quiet in his moccasins
and he whispers, quinne kesos:
white frost on grass
as he steps across his own moonshadow
and though no one might hear
scrub oaks crashing in the swamplands
felled by the durable front
teeth of beaver
gnawing their way home
to winter's dam
those sounds and the soft footfalls
are lifted to the firmament
following the moonlight.
Monica Enders lives in Sag Harbor. "November's full moon is named Beaver Moon in Algonquin tradition," she writes. "This is one of my poems from a series about the monthly full moons in relationship to the Algonquin tribe, who flourished on Long Island."