Mishoon by Fire

This poem grows out of a real event in Ashfield, Massachusetts: a traditional Mishoon burn, where a dugout canoe is shaped by fire in the presence of community. It reflects on Indigenous stewardship, cultural renewal, and the patience required to let land and history speak for themselves. Though it carries echoes of my ongoing “songs for the land” work, this piece is written as poetry, not performance, meant to sit with the reader rather than move them along.

They chose a tree that had already listened,

rings full of weather, patience, and time,

a trunk that knew how rivers remember

and how fire, when honored, can be kind.

In Ashfield the park will hold its breath,

May smoke lifting slow and thin,

not the smoke of loss or taking,

but the careful burn that brings shape back in.

A mishoon is not carved by force or hurry,

it's coaxed by flame and knowing hands,

fire teaching wood how to open itself

to water, to journey, to land.

Before maps, before towns learned borders,

before grants and calendars and dates,

canoes like this traced quiet futures

through coves, through bends, through the grammar of lakes.

Now the town makes room for the old instruction,

steps aside and lets it speak,

honors the first stewards of these waters

whose care ran deeper than words could reach.

I think of all the songs for the land I've written,

not to claim it, not to own,

but to stand with fields and rivers

and say this place is not alone.

This one won't be sung from a stage or porch,

no chorus to carry the tune,

but it rhymes the way fire and water do,

each shaping the other, each knowing when to yield room.

When the boat parade drifts into September,

and the mishoon meets the light,

it will carry more than wood and flame,

it will carry a memory done right.

A reminder that land remembers who listens,

that revival doesn't shout or boast,

it arrives as fire guided gently,

as a canoe returning to the coast.