How do you feel being called a feminist?
(among all the other words that I have seemed to forgotten,
I read them about five times and taht is the only one I remember)
Do you feel like a Beacon?
Are you a totem pole?
Spiritual?
Although I respect you, I don't think you deserve the spot light
You have become a commodity
and an excuse
It is not yoru fault, I do not blame you
You are marketing gold
Female! Native! Artist! Creator!
You do not hear too much about
your people in a positive way
Through your art I find life and Passion
A tree emits her spirit and yoru sky,
Your sky! It is alive and fluid.
it embraces me
Was it an escape or was that what your gaze constructed?
Emily, you are remembered in western culture
hung up on the walls on the fourth floor of the Vancouver Art Gallery
but in your culture, you have always been a spirit
and are probably in amongst the trees in the forest
conversing with the souls of those you once painted
Your canvas did not capture nature
because nature is free-
Emily, you helped us see the animate in nature
by providing us a window.
I am sorry that you can buy T-shirts and mugs
with your totem poles on them.