A Note on “Our” Soil
Our little journal, named for a rugged fern, has grown in American soil—soil that, in truth, has never been owned. The first people who lived here for many thousands of years understood this. When we say we live on “unceded” land, I believe we mean land that was never anyone’s to give.
I walk often in local wetlands that once were home to people we can call Southern Lushootseed, who thrived in this living surround they did not see as theirs. Here, I’ve been watching spring emerge since the solstice—redwings sing, bog irises poke their blades from the mud, woody wild apple buds point out at earth and sky…and I think of all the trouble made with claims of ownership on the miracles that sustain us.
Some poems, and some works of any art, can dispel the hypnosis of ownership. The shared presence sometimes found in a poem, song, story, dance, painting…is a kind of opening out from the solitary. Who is ever alone in wonder? And how can awe be fenced at a border? Such questions are urgent for us in America these turbulent days—in this unceded expanse where humans from all over might yet participate in sustainable bounty.
Thanks for your presence,
Jed