Heirlooms, Haikus, and Inheritance

Kiyoshi Hirawa

we traced our Keweenaw roots to a trapper
who left his daughter nothing but five winter haikus
written in French on animal skin

Lake Superior’s blue howl
is a whisper in summer;
a cicada dreams

wolverine tooth
lodged in a moose skull beneath
the snowy meadow’s lone pine

Ottawa braves shiver and carve
shafts from a chopped Chinkapin oak;
a thousand fallen arrowheads rustle

winter wolf tracks;
my moccasins shadow
a blood trail

canoe frozen mid-stream;
beaver-rescued, it commands the dam
and soon, the river

a Lansing museum
maintains the vellum heirloom;
we preserve the inheritance